Mouse swapping on a laptop

[Dan Coutu]

On Sat, 2003-08-02 at 18:50, bscott at ntisys.com wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, at 2:34pm, mkomarinski at wayga.org wrote:
> > Remember the PS/2 port is not hot-swap safe.
> 
>   Most laptops have electronics specifically designed to handle hotswap for
> PS/2.  I won't say "all", but I'd be surprised to find one that did not.
> 

Ah, that explains why both devices can function simultaneously.

>   Myself, I have solved this kind of problem in the way that Derek Martin
> suggests.  There can be only one PS/2 "auxiliary" device, so the laptop's
> electronics have to be responsible for multiplexing the PS/2 signals.  Not
> so with USB.  By using only one pointer as a PS/2 pointer, and the rest as
> USB pointers, the kernel and/or XFree can handle multiple inputs and
> multiple protocols.
> 

I'm trying this approach, it is simplest. I like simple.

>   I think Bill Mullen's idea of using multiple XFree configuration options
> would also work, but the USB method (if the hardware allows for it) avoids
> the need to specify X startup options.

While I could certainly see how this one would work okay it's just not
automated enough for me. Stuff like this should be possible to write
code to handle so that I don't have to fool with it. Guess that's why I
write software, so I don't have to do stuff manually!

-- 

Dan Coutu
Managing Director
Snowy Owl Internet Consulting, LLC
http://www.snowy-owl.com/