Synaptics touchpad & optional PS2 mouse problem

[samoverton]

I have the synaptics driver installed for my touchpad and I have tried my best to follow the guides on these forums for writing my XF86Config, but I have run in to some problems.

I have a PS2 mouse plugged in, and with the config I paste below, everything works fine, no problems. The touchpad has all the extra synaptics features, the ps2 mouse works etc.

However, if I start X without the PS2 mouse plugged in, then a strange thing happens. The touchpad reverts to its non-synaptics behaviour (i.e. the tap-to-click and scroll functions dont work) and the keyboard stops working.

If anybody can suggest what I can do to my X config to make my ps2 mouse optional and not break my keyboard and touchpad when it is unplugged, I would be very grateful. Here is the (relevant parts of) XF86Config:

[dtor]

Try changing protocol to "auto-dev" in Synaptics section. What I think happens is when you don't have your PS/2 mouse plugged in synaptics device shifts to /dev/input/event0. "auto-dev" should discover currently used device automatically (but may introduce slight startup delay as it scans the devices).
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Dmitry

[samoverton]

Yes, that was it!

Thanks very much for your help.