The FreeBSD Diary

For your quick and dirty USB Mouse support, please following these easy steps:

1. Add the appropriate entries to your kernel configuration file:
   
   device uhci
   device ohci
   device usb
   device ums
   
2. Add the appropriate lines to your /etc/rc.conf file:
   
   moused_enable="NO"
   moused_flags="/dev/ums0"
   usbd_enable="YES"
   usbd_flags="" (though I like -vv personally, just for the scroll factor)
   
3. Make sure your /etc/usbd.conf has these lines in it:
   
   device "Mouse"
   devname "ums[0-9]+"
   attach "/usr/sbin/moused -p /dev/${DEVNAME} -I
                  /var/run/moused.${DEVNAME}.pid"
   
4. Create the device entry
   
   cd /dev
   ./MAKEDEV ums0
   
5. Rebuild your kernel and reboot.  As always, I would recommend saving /kernel to /kernel.stable before trying out the new kernel.  It's a handy thing to have around anyways.
   
6. Add the following line to /etc/rc.conf which enables the mouse on all virtual terminals:
   
   allscreens_flags="-m on"

I don't think I forgot anything, but if I did please let me know :)

-- Benn

• usb(4)
• usbd(8)
• usbd.conf(5)
• usbdevs(8)
• ums(4)

If you have X11 pointed at sysmouse, then this will work just fine.  And it will support plugging/unplugging the mouse at runtime without the need of a manual HUP.

vidcontrol -m on

to actually enable it on the terminal.  Alexander Anderson said he found this piece of info on the man page for moused(8) by accident.  He also suggested step 6 above.