Re: MOUSE_PS2_VMMOUSE and input/mice

[Thomas Hellstrom <thellstrom@vmware.com>]

On 01/15/2016 11:39 AM, Lauri Kasanen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Seems the new and shiny VMWare mouse driver does not pass events
> to /dev/input/mice, rudely breaking userspace that doesn't
> support absolute input devices.
>
> Can this be changed? Would there be any downside to passing those
> events?
>
> - Lauri

Hi, Lauri.
What particular use-case is broken?

I'm assuming what's happening is that only the relative device gets
recognized as a mouse, and by default we don't send events through that
device.

In the vmware gui there is a workaround, one can select 
edit->preferences->input->"Optimize mouse for games"->Always

This will send events through the relative USB mouse, and if there is no
USB controller in the VM, through the relative MOUSE_PS2_VMMOUSE

The other option is to limit the number of protocols the PS2 driver
checks for and avoid enabling the vmmmouse functionality. There is a
kernel module option for that, although I can't remember it offhand.

We can't send both relative and absolute events simultaneously since
that would confuse the X server severely.

/Thomas