When you want to rip your hair out and scream - Linux mouse woes

[Hazy-Haze]

So I was sat researching Elden Ring builds a couple of hours back and my mouse went weird. Mouse acceleration went to some light speed level, like move the mouse a mm and it went off the screen. Problem seemed to be linked to the extra mouse buttons on the side. I think xinput did something weird. I corrected the speed issue with "xset m default", which didn't work initially, but after a reboot that killed the acceleration. Also my left mouse button no longer worked. So I have have hacked my xorg.conf several times, removed the mouse driver and reloaded it a few times, rebooted several times, ripped the button off the mouse and made sure the switch was working, then finally after two hours I made it work again. I don't know how though and that is irking me a lot.

So ten minutes back I fired up xev again and clicked in the box and it showed a button event was happening (which is how it is normally). I closed the window and the left mouse button now works.

So no user files were changed. No root files were changed either. I ran a recursive find looking for anything changed since midnight and apart from the usual socket files nothing had changed. So i am just totally bemused. Can I be bothered to fire up Elden Ring now, I don't know.

 

[ChroniclyChronic]

mouse cursor speed setting in elden ring over riding system default?

 

[Hazy-Haze]

I did manage to reproduce it. The issue was a button on the mouse. If I press that button and spin the mouse wheel, the system mouse speed gets altered. It is not connected to the dpi switches on the mouse that change the cursor speed by altering dpi/scroll speed. Mouse is a Gamemax mouse I picked up from Scan a couple of years back.

To fix it is basically "xset m default" and close X and log out. Upon logging back in it is usually fixed. If not reboot.

What do i think is being changed. Something in /proc most likely. But I setup tripwire to monitor everything on the drive and created a start point, then did the mouse glitch and then made a new point and diffed the two. Then went through every file changed and nothing pertained to the mouse. So it has to be something in /proc, but I don't get why sometimes it survives the reboot. i did wonder if the mouse had some flash on it that was allowing it to survive reboot, but it's a cheap gaming mouse, not like an expensive Razer.

Anyway I moved on from it since I know how to avoid it. I would probably have to use a debug kernel to narrow it down and that is a whole load of hassle I really can't be bothered with. Then the mega hassle of running X through strace looking for glitches. Not happening.

As to the button not working, I actually think the button keeps sticking. i sprayed it with contact cleaner and it seems a bit better. but ultimately i'm planning on replacing it with a Deathadder, given they don't cost crazy money any more.

 

[ChroniclyChronic]

"Anyway I moved on from it since I know how to avoid it. I would probably have to use a debug kernel to narrow it down and that is a whole load of hassle I really can't be bothered with. Then the mega hassle of running X through strace looking for glitches. Not happening. "

Not since the days of writing a SCSI Driver for an copy of redhat on a proliant 1000, lifes too short!

"Back in our day we didn't have tripwires...or strace.... We had to insert a Ferret at run level 2 and scare the the little fuzzy buggers out to shoot them.. Failing that you'd just engineer a fire and say sorry boss, cant be done...have you considered Windows..."

 

[Hazy-Haze]

Oh it's much better than 25 years ago. My first Linux was Slackware and specifically zipslack and bigslack, since I still had Windows back then. No X on Zipslack and basic X/Gnome on Bigslack. Then eventually I installed Slackware 3 or 4. Then Redhat 6. From there I went through most distros eventually ending up on Slack, Fedora or Debian. nowadays Devuan is my poison and I won't be changing it. The hassle of installing, say an Nvidia driver, was a real fun thing back then. Or adding a printer or making a modem work. Fun times.

I was saying to someone the other day if he wanted to learn Linux beyond Noob level to do LFS. I've done it twice in my Linux life and it teaches you a lot, but it's still a pain. i found the LFS book in my wardrobe a couple of months back. Printed out on a dot matrix somewhere around the turn of the century.

Nowadays you can play games on Linux, the nvidia driver just works most the time without issue, but I feel the quality of coding has deteriorated quite a lot in the last 25 years. Back in the day we had games like doom and quake and they weren't released broken and didn't have hundreds of patches needed to fix them. People wrote good quality code and knew their shit. Nowadays it's all buggy and crappy, with security vulnerabilities because someone couldn't be bothered to declare input as a string or write a handler to sanitise it before using it.

When I was at Uni, my programming teacher used to despair at me for writing all manner of error handling into my programs, but my programs didn't crash and you could type all manner of stuff into them and it would just reject it and tell you to write it correctly or send it to the bit bucket. We've definitely lost that in the last two generations.

Anyway enough moaning.

 

[ChroniclyChronic]

Yeah I still use linux on my desktop. Always have. just in those days (94-96 )it was a pain in the arse. Taught me loads about NT/Windows though, through the very act of building via txt configs and c files. So the years in amongst the nuts and bolts paved a way for a career on Solaris/Linux/Windows even the odd os2 .

If you ever had a computer (VIC 20, C64,BBC's . All the Speccies, all the Amstrads, even a PET)in the 1980's and sent it to a place in Fife for repair and heat soak testing. I probably worked on it as a 14-16 yr old!

honestly forgot more now! That was when I could lug 90 lb servers about and my brain wasn't gloop!

Now I just do amateur radio and astronomy stuff. Cant solder or climb ladders any more though
"Nowadays it's all buggy and crappy, with security vulnerabilities because someone couldn't be bothered to declare input as a string or write a handler to sanitise it before using it." - buffer over run was a fantastic one to do. on SQL servers (all flavours!) or using the old ping (can exceed 64k limit) to disable a server with ping flooding and cache overrunning and TTL's.

I once bet a Systems Admin at a large firm in Glasgow that I could login to His windows system. He obs called bull. I remote cd'd using an ftp server on port local and cd'd into his server without any name or pass. Left him a txt file.

He went berserk at microsiff when He showed them the logs and queried His Enterprise bill.

Thank you for helping me today. I needed that wee trip down memory lane. Sitting feeling crap and worthless , forgetting I have actually done some proper stuff in the past and should be happy for it, not sad for the loss.

Nice to chat with you!

New post automatically merged: Saturday at 1:07pm

"When I was at Uni, my programming teacher used to despair at me for writing all manner of error handling into my programs, but my programs didn't crash and you could type all manner of stuff into them and it would just reject it and tell you to write it correctly or send it to the bit bucket. We've definitely lost that in the last two generations."


5th/6th(+now was 5th when I was a Uni Sys admin) no actual understanding of the do while loops, if elses and ifs, or strings and concatenations. They get some C++, some VB/.NET and its all IDE stuff. going in to a include and writing code is not an option. Like when I learned windows. I could swing into the source or include, and fix, strip out or enhance, because of the C and linux grounding.

 

[Hazy-Haze]

Yeah I still use linux on my desktop. Always have. just in those days (94-96 )it was a pain in the arse. Taught me loads about NT/Windows though, through the very act of building via txt configs and c files. So the years in amongst the nuts and bolts paved a way for a career on Solaris/Linux/Windows even the odd os2 .

If you ever had a computer (VIC 20, C64,BBC's . All the Speccies, all the Amstrads, even a PET)in the 1980's and sent it to a place in Fife for repair and heat soak testing. I probably worked on it as a 14-16 yr old!

honestly forgot more now! That was when I could lug 90 lb servers about and my brain wasn't gloop!

Now I just do amateur radio and astronomy stuff. Cant solder or climb ladders any more though
"Nowadays it's all buggy and crappy, with security vulnerabilities because someone couldn't be bothered to declare input as a string or write a handler to sanitise it before using it." - buffer over run was a fantastic one to do. on SQL servers (all flavours!) or using the old ping (can exceed 64k limit) to disable a server with ping flooding and cache overrunning and TTL's.

I once bet a Systems Admin at a large firm in Glasgow that I could login to His windows system. He obs called bull. I remote cd'd using an ftp server on port local and cd'd into his server without any name or pass. Left him a txt file.

He went berserk at microsiff when He showed them the logs and queried His Enterprise bill.

Thank you for helping me today. I needed that wee trip down memory lane. Sitting feeling crap and worthless , forgetting I have actually done some proper stuff in the past and should be happy for it, not sad for the loss.

Nice to chat with you!

New post automatically merged: Saturday at 1:07pm

When I was at Uni, my programming teacher used to despair at me for writing all manner of error handling into my programs, but my programs didn't crash and you could type all manner of stuff into them and it would just reject it and tell you to write it correctly or send it to the bit bucket. We've definitely lost that in the last two generations.


5th/6th(+now was 5th when I was a Uni Sys admin) no actual understanding of the do while loops, if elses and ifs, or strings and concatenations. They get some C++, some VB/.NET and its all IDE stuff. going in to a include and writing code is not an option. Like when I learned windows. I could swing into the source or include, and fix, strip out or enhance, because of the C and linux grounding.

There are still a few of us and definitely a good handful of ex admins on here.

I had the pick at Uni for how I pushed my career in IT. My db lecturer wanted me to do that because I could visualise a database and sketch it out in an hour, then create it inside of a day. She said i had real talent, but all I wanted was a date with her (and somehow I actually achieved it after I finished her class). I had more interest in building servers, installing Linux on them and ultimately working in datacentres. I did freelance some databases for a couple of companies and did some network stuff with a friend for companies and built servers, but ultimately it lasted a few years after Uni and i'd had enough. I tried a few things, now I work in logistics.

I don't program any more, well i hack source code once in a while if I find issues that annoy me. Sometimes add more functionality to code but it's specific to hobbies. My programming started at BBC B and Spectrum's, back in the day. My first uni course was a real eye opener. I had to learn assembly, which was a super pain in the ass, but if you can write in that, C and C++ are fairly easy in comparison. I also did Java after changing Uni's, which was a giant POS. For Linux in second year, we did bash and shell code. Some VB for another module. But it's not my love by any means. I prefer building stuff and configuring it.

 

[ChroniclyChronic]

similar to you. DB Schema were a bit of a visual breeze, same with planning/migrating large scale networks. Spent years since I was an actual kid working in it. So by time I got to Uni they had me taking the classes, lol (I jest you not, "Here! Just watch them and , any q's just help them out. i'll be back at end! WENT TO PUB!) and a cheapo admin watching and debugging their new network! Cos you know.... That Uni course won't pay for itself (even though your doing half their work!)

 

[ChroniclyChronic]

Aorry typing and heaids all over place. Really unwell. apologies for shit writing skills and self indulgent trips down memory lane.

chest infection aparently. got nurses in.

 

[GreenRed]

I use Nobara Linux now since Windows went down the forced 11 route, it's surprisingly plug and play, I was amazed. Only 3 things I need my Windows for: Fortnite, Reaper (works under Linux but not my plugins), and DaVinci (also a bit more convenient under Win, even tho it works under Linux). Games run 5-10% better...