# Gentoo and KVM's

## jackson57

My friend is building me a Gentoo system which I will be fooling around with.

I was curious how well Gentoo works with KVM Consoles. I ordered an Amconn KVM10E15LC (specs can be viewed here http://www.amconnstore.com/products/kvmconsoles/KVM10E15LC/). Will this KVM work with Gentoo? I'm sure the monitor will work but will I get any issues with the builtin mouse and keyboard?

Thanks in advance for your help!

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## Xanadu

 *jackson57 wrote:*   

> My friend is building me a Gentoo system which I will be fooling around with.
> 
> I was curious how well Gentoo works with KVM Consoles. I ordered an Amconn KVM10E15LC (specs can be viewed here http://www.amconnstore.com/products/kvmconsoles/KVM10E15LC/). Will this KVM work with Gentoo? I'm sure the monitor will work but will I get any issues with the built-in mouse and keyboard?
> 
> Thanks in advance for your help!

 

While I don't have one of these (it looks damn nice, though), according to:

http://www.amconnstore.com/products/kvmconsoles/KVM10E15LC/specs.html

It's just pain-jane PS/2 style keyboard and mouse.  I can't even begin to make up situations where that wouldn't work with Linux in general, let alone Gentoo.  They are basically just what laptops have in them and, sitting here typing on one running Gentoo, I can say that there are absolutely no issues here.

Hope something in there helps you out!

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## dtor

You may have problems with KVM if you want to use wheel mouse and the KVM resets mouse when switching between boxes. I have no idea whether this KVM does this or not.

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## jackson57

Thank you for your replies. I have been doing a bit of researching and I found that loosing the keyboard or mouse can be an issue with switching PC's on the KVM. I contacted Amconn and they said they haven't heard of that issue with this KVM Console. 

My PC's will be PS2 and the KVM is PS2 as well so I'm assuming it should work fine. The Console doesnt have a wheel-mouse, only the touchpad by the looks of it.

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## Xanadu

 *jackson57 wrote:*   

> Thank you for your replies. I have been doing a bit of researching and I found that loosing the keyboard or mouse can be an issue with switching PC's on the KVM. I contacted Amconn and they said they haven't heard of that issue with this KVM Console. 
> 
> My PC's will be PS2 and the KVM is PS2 as well so I'm assuming it should work fine. The Console doesnt have a wheel-mouse, only the touchpad by the looks of it.

 

Hmmm...  well I should've mentioned this in my original post...   :Embarassed: 

I use a KVM at home (nothing as fancy as the one you are looking at, mind you).  When I switch machines, I have to pause a second or so for Linux to "catch up" with the switch or else the mouse pointer on the screen goes 400 miles and hour with a 1/8 inch of movement of the mouse itself.  I find that if I hold the left button down for a second and let it go, Linux will re-poll/reset/re-whatever the device and it works normally.  Sadly, Windows doesn't have this problem.  

I've tried to tell the psmouse module a couple different things to poll the port more often to try and work around this issue, but it doesn't help.  I did this:

```
options psmouse rate=100 proto=any resetafter=1 smartscroll=1
```

and added that to a file I called "mouse" in /etc/modules.d/ (and run an update-modules, of course) but that doesn't help any.  I had thought of that / those numbers after looking at what Windows sets the ps2 port at, and the poll number is what's in the Device Manager of XP, so I tried it with Linux, but I contiune the same to have this issue.

So dtor is right in the sense that there could be some odd / annoying reseting issues, but, it's not really that big of a deal if you keep in mind that you may not be able to "switch --> grab mouse --> work" like you are used to doing (or plan to do).  You may need to do my little trick of holding the mouse button down for a sec, letting it go, then waiting another half second.  I'm a bit lucky that I have a wireless mouse with an LED that shows connection status.  When it blinks, after the holding-the-button part, that when it's 100% fine.  And yes, I have this problem with a wired mouse also.

Annoying? yes.  Should it be? no.  Is it a BIG deal? no.

Just my 2 cents.

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=262690

is the KVM I have.  Mine is the 4-port, not the 2-port that is pictured.

P.S.

Convert the above distance measurements to your needs as I'm in the US...   :Laughing: 

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## dtor

Xanadu,

Please try adding 

```
options psmouse resync_time=5
```

instead of what you have now. It will tell the mouse module to force resync if there was no data coming from the mouse in 5 seconds.

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## Xanadu

 *dtor wrote:*   

> Xanadu,
> 
> Please try adding 
> 
> ```
> ...

 

Interesting.  That's not in the kernel documentation (for sys-kernel/suspend2-sources-2.6.19-r3, anyway).  I'll give it a shot anyway.  I'm not at home at the moment, I'm on a laptop of mine (Gentoo, of course!), so any replies saying it worked or not would have to wait until later, but I suppose we're getting a bit off topic though.  But if this helps me, then perhaps it would help Jackson with his/her/it's KVM when he gets it.  :Smile: 

Thanx for the heads up!

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## Xanadu

 *dtor wrote:*   

> Xanadu,
> 
> Please try adding 
> 
> ```
> ...

 

 :Very Happy: 

Perfect!  I changed it to re-sync in 1 second rather than the 5 you suggested, but other than that, it works like a charm.  No more Wacky-Mouse-When-Switching-KVM-Port issue.

Thank you!

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