[Cialug] Newbie question - connecting PS2 mouse/keyboard to USB port on Linux box

[D. Joe Anderson]

On Tue, Aug 08, 2006 at 10:40:36PM -0500, Rob Miller wrote:
> I've got a Dell n510 with SuSE 10.  I'd like to use my old IOGEAR kvm switch
> to connect another Dell pc to share the monitor, keyboard and mouse.
> However, the IOGEAR cables are PS2 and the Dell n510 only has USB ports.  I
> bought a Dynex adapter that routes the PS2 mouse and keyboard into one USB
> port and the mouse works but as soon as I hook up the keyboard and go to
> Firefox, an on-going string of letters (
> iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ) fills the address field.
> 
> Would two individual PS2 to USB adapters solve the problem?

In one of my KVM setups, I've found that switching away and then
back to X Windows makes the mouse feed garbage to X.  

What seems to work as a work-around is, upon switching back, I
first drop into a virtual terminal (eg, Ctrl-Alt-F1) and then
back to X (Ctrl-Alt-F7) and that seems to be enough to bring the
mouse back to its senses.

Worth a try, if you can remember to do it and can stomach having
to do it, and find that less pain than semi-randomly trying to
buy hardware that can handle this well.

-- 
Joe