Newbie need help on configuring mouse and X windows

[Lowell Gilbert]

"Lei Luo" <lluo at eecis.udel.edu> writes:

> I am new to FreeBSD and just trying to learning something. I installed
> FreeBSD without X system on my computer and it works fine. But when I
> tried to configure mouse and X windows, I had big problem.
> 
> As instructed in the handbook, I configured the type and port of the
> mouse (PS2, so I used the default). But after I enabled it, I would be
> in one of two situations.
> 
> In the first situation, the background of the screen turns to blue and
> I cannot see if the mouse cursor moving. I could not see the dialog
> any more. Sometimes, if I just pressed enter, I could go back the
> previous screen, but having a blue background now. More commonly, the
> system was just stuck there and the keyboard was locked. At this time,
> I had to turn off the power to shutdown the computer.
> 
> In the second situation, the background was OK. But the mouse cursor
> was twinkling on the screen. In addition, the mouse cursor had a
> strange shape, not rectangular, but just like some unprintable
> character displayed on a DOS screen. Does anyone know what is wrong
> here and how to fix the problem?

What were you using for this configuration? xf86cfg?

> If I skipped this step and tried to configure X windows directly, of
> course, the system warned me that I hadn't configured the mouse and
> asked me to go back to configure it.
> 
> My computer is a Gateway 2000 desktop with 200 Intel Pentium II
> processor. Very old so I used to run Linux on it.

Maybe the same X configuration will work.

> P.S., I didn't see the kernel configuration menu. Is it removed from
> FreeBSD 5.x?

Yes, a number of things have changed in FreeBSD 5.x, and it's taking a
while for the documentation to catch up.  By the time 5.x is
considered ready for production use, we should be caught up.

> FreeBSD 5.x? Also, when I tried to reboot or shutdown the computer
> with "reboot" or "shutdown" commands, my computer was stuck instead of
> reboot or shutdown. At that time, the power button on the computer
> could not work. I had to turn off the power switch on the wall. Does
> anyone have this problem, too?

Yes, ACPI support is one of the main sources of problems on 5.x.  
See the release errata for some suggestions on what to do about it.