I just fumbled my way through converting my old hal mouse configuration to the "new" way of putting it back in xorg.conf (where it belongs :)
Peter Hutterer gave me a link to his blog, which was very helpful: http://who-t.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-configuration-world-order.html Turns out that the xorg-server-1.9.x defaults work okay with my cheap M$ optical wheel-mouse, but not with my expensive trackball mouse without a wheel. When hal first came along I added a custom .fdi file for the trackball by adapting the settings I formerly put in the InputDevice section in my old xorg.conf (where it should have stayed). Now that hal has gone, I've adapted the hal settings, with help from Peter's blog, back to xorg.conf but with some important adjustments. Here is my original (pre-hal) mouse config from xorg.conf: Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Mouse0" Driver "mouse" <----- note the old driver Option "Protocol" "auto" <--- this is now redundant Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice" <--- now redundant Option "Emulate3Buttons" Option "EmulateWheel" <----- because I have no wheel Option "EmulateWheelButton" "8" <---- new default is "4" EndSection My new (post-hal) version: Section "InputClass" <----- note the new word "Class", not "Device" Identifier "trackball" <----- can be anything you want MatchProduct "ImExPS" <-----*new*. Matches the product name! # Driver "evdev" <--- this is redundant so I removed it. Option "AutoServerLayout" "on" <--- see Peter's blog Option "Emulate3Buttons" "on" Option "EmulateWheel" "on" Option "EmulateWheelButton" "8" <--- change the default EndSection If you have no InputDevice sections (many people no longer need them) then "evdev" will automatically discover and configure your keyboard and mouse without being asked, applying the xorg-server defaults. (That's why I deleted the Driver "evedev" from my config.) Only if the defaults are wrong for your machine do you need to change them using the stuff I outlined above. At first I tried using the old "mouse" driver in the old way, but it seems to fight with "evdev" over who's in charge and between the two of them I got error messages galore and the mouse didn't work right. The nice thing about the new "InputClass" thing is that you can have as many such sections as you want, each one being specific for an individual mouse or keyboard -- note the "MatchProduct" keyword picks out my trackball mouse specifically and doesn't prevent me from using my simpler wheelmouse if I want to, where the default settings would 'just work'. Enough for now.
