Bug#570448: gpm fails silently

[Peter Samuelson]

[ael]
> It seems to run as
>    gpm -m /dev/input/mice -t exps2
> taken from /etc/gpm.conf.  (It is hard to write this with no cut & paste)
> /var/log/messages says "started gpm successfully ..."
> There is, however no cursor although clicking button 1 produces inverse
> video character block in centre of screen on tty. Mouse/ball movement
> has no effect. Of course, there is nothing under X either.

In your configuration, X and gpm are _completely_ separate.  Which
leads me to the question of whether your mouse, and kernel driver, are
reporting correctly.  Try this:

    od -v -tx1 -Anone -w3 < /dev/input/mice

This shows mouse packets in 3-byte PS/2 format, one per line.  Move the
mouse, click the buttons, and you should see it all in real time.
Examples of what you should see:

    09 00 00      <-- left button pressed
    0c 00 00      <-- middle button pressed
    0a 00 00      <-- right button pressed
    0b 00 00      <-- left and right buttons both pressed
    08 00 00      <-- no buttons pressed

    08 01 00      <-- move to the right
    08 02 00      <-- move to the right
    08 fd 00      <-- move to the left
    08 ff 00      <-- move to the left

Given that you say the mouse doesn't work in X, that is the first thing
I would investigate.
-- 
Peter Samuelson | org-tld!p12n!peter | http://p12n.org/