Implementation of the X Window System

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The shortest way to working xorg with mouse and keyboard for common hardware configurations:

# backup xorg.conf, and then
rm /etc/X11/xorg.conf
# install drivers
poldek -u xorg-driver-video-$YOUR_VIDEO_DRIVER
poldek -u xorg-driver-input-evdev
# install hal and dbus
poldek -u hal dbus
# and the most important step for mouse and keyboard (-:
service messagebus start
service haldaemon start
# test it
Xwrapper

xorg server can use two different sources of mouse, keyboard information. This section descibed kbd and mouse driven one without a HAL (or with disabled HAL).

xorg.conf, section “ServerLayout”:

# disable HAL
Option "AutoAddDevices" "false"

# indirectly cause kbd & mouse driver to be used
Option  "AllowEmptyInput" "false"

You need typical keyboard and mouse configuration sections, too.

xorg server can use two different sources of mouse, keyboard information. This one is anount evdev driven and HAL provided information.

evdev kernel module needs to be loaded:

echo evdev >> /etc/modules
modprobe evdev

xorg.conf:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier  "Keyboard0"
        Driver      "kbd"
        Option "XkbRules"   "xorg"
        Option "XkbModel"   "evdev"
        Option "XkbLayout"  "pl"
EndSection

Keyboard configuration

Manual:

cp -a /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/10-keymap.fdi /etc/hal/fdi/policy/
vi /etc/hal/fdi/policy/10-keymap.fdi

If the above does not work:

setxkbmap -model evdev -layout pl

From KDE 3 Control Center:

Control Center -> Regional & Accessibility -> Keyboard Layout -> Keyboard model: "Evdev-managed keyboard"

From KDE 4 systemsettings:

System settings -> Regional & Language -> Keyboard Layout ->  Keyboard model: "Evdev-managed keyboard"

Note that kde3/4 method above is just a GUI-way for configuring kde setxkbmap call.

WARNING: do not add any kind of synaptics entries to xorg.conf. If you do, xorg will see two of them – the manually-added one and the automatically-detected one (type xinput list to see a list of all detected input devices) and all of the configuration options listed below will get applied to the wrong one. In other words, as long as there's a synaptics entry in xorg.conf, you won't have any way to change the drivers configs.

Xorg v7.4 does not enable tapping by default. To enable add to 11-x11-synaptics.fdi:

<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">1</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton2" type="string">2</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton3" type="string">3</merge>

NOTE: you need to copy it first, if you haven't done it so:

cp -a /usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/10osvendor/11-x11-synaptics.fdi /etc/hal/fdi/policy

You may find these also useful (if your hardware supports):

<merge key="input.x11_options.VertEdgeScroll" type="string">true</merge>
<merge key="input.x11_options.CircularScrolling" type="string">true</merge>

More from archlinux wiki.

The problem is that when xdm runs with recent X server then tty0 (as it's first free tty) is taken by xserver. Then when SysVinit tries to run mingetty also on tty0. This ends with mingetty fighiting with X server for tty0.

upstart-Sysvinit is not affected as it starts mingetty before xdm runs, so xdm choses different, first free ttyX.

Solution: change xdm to use fixed tty that's not used in inittab for mingettys (like tty9).