Console Mouse Support

GPM, short for General Purpose Mouse, is a daemon that provides mouse support for Linux virtual consoles.

Installing

Desktop

Install gpm with pacman.

Laptop

Install gpm and xf86-input-synaptics with pacman.

Configuring

The -m parameter precedes the declaration of the mouse to be used. The -t parameter precedes the type of mouse. To get a list of available types for the -t option, run gpm with -t help.

$ gpm -m /dev/input/mice -t help

If the mouse only has 2 buttons, pass -2 to GPM_ARGS and button-2 will perform the paste function.

The gpm package needs to be started with a few parameters. These parameters can be added in the file /etc/conf.d/gpm or used when running gpm directly.

• For PS/2 mice, replace the existing line with:

GPM_ARGS="-m /dev/psaux -t ps2"

• Whereas USB mice should use:

GPM_ARGS="-m /dev/input/mice -t imps2"

• And IBM Trackpoints need:

GPM_ARGS="-m /dev/input/mice -t ps2"

Once a suitable configuration has been found, gpm can be started by systemd:

systemctl start gpm.service

and enabled at boot time with:

systemctl enable gpm.service

For more information see man gpm.