Re: different wsmouse(4) wscons devices interpreted as a single ws(4) X device; how to map 1-to-1?

[Lucas de Sena]

On 2026-07-22, Lucas de Sena wrote:
> Hi, I use a thinkpad with three pointer devices:
> - wsmouse0: The thinkpad's touchpad.
> - wsmouse1: The thinkpad's trackpoint.
> - wsmouse2: An external USB mouse.
>
> [...]
>
> The X server, however does not recognize all three, it only recognises
> two: a generic /dev/wsmouse that affects both the trackpoint and the USB
> mouse; and /dev/wsmouse0 for the synaptics touchpad only:

So...
I could get a hacky solution for this.

On /var/log/Xorg.0.log, i got this info line (should also be on yours):

> [ 26445.823] (II) The server relies on wscons to provide the list of input 
> devices.
>       If no devices become available, reconfigure wscons or disable 
> AutoAddDevices

I disabled hotplugging for automatically configuring devices on
xorg.conf(5) (with the "AutoAddDevices" option.  There's also a
command-line flag for it on the X server, but i have no idea where
to put it, maybe in some xenodm(8) configuration file?); and then
i listed each input device manually (even the keyboard(!), otherwise
i could not type) as if i were using XFree86 in the 90s.

Here's my /etc/X11/xorg.conf:

        Section "ServerFlags"
                Option "AutoAddDevices" "off"
        EndSection

        Section "InputDevice"
                Identifier "keyboard"
                Driver "kbd"
        EndSection

        Section "InputDevice"
                Identifier "trackpoint"
                Driver "ws"
                Option "Device" "/dev/wsmouse1"

                # wheel emulation on middle button in both X/Y directions
                Option "EmulateWheel" "True"
                Option "EmulateWheelButton" "2"
                Option "XAxisMapping" "6 7"
                Option "YAxisMapping" "4 5"

                # acceleration (needs more testing/fiddling)
                Option "AccelerationProfile" "6"
                Option "AccelerationNumerator" "5"
                Option "AccelerationDenominator" "1"
                Option "AccelerationThreshold" "3"
                #Option "AdaptiveDeceleration" "2.0"
        EndSection

        Section "InputDevice"
                Identifier "touchpad"
                Driver "synaptics"
                Option "Device" "/dev/wsmouse0"

                Option "TapButton1" "1"
                Option "TapButton2" "2"
                Option "TapButton3" "3"
                Option "AccelFactor" "0"
                Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "1"
        EndSection

        Section "InputDevice"
                Identifier "genric-mouse"
                Driver "ws"
                Option "Device" "/dev/wsmouse"
        EndSection

        Section "ServerLayout"
                Identifier "the-layout"
                InputDevice "keyboard" "CoreKeyboard"
                InputDevice "trackpoint" "CorePointer"
                InputDevice "touchpad" "SendCoreEvents"
                InputDevice "genric-mouse" "SendCoreEvents"
        EndSection

As far as i have tried, it did not matter to specify "InputClass"
sections to match a device and configure it.  There would be only a
single X input device for both wsmouse(4) devices anyway.

That's a suboptimal solution: disable hotplugging input devices, and
manually configure them.  But works.

-- 
Lucas de Sena