/dev/input/mice don’t appear

I have configured and emulated on qemu the Debian Etch without graphic interface, but after I needed to install xserver-xorg application to make some tests with mplayer.

Thus after I had executed apt-get install xserver-xorg, I tested X server but it couldn’t find the mouse corepointer, finishing with error below:

(EE) Cannot open device /dev/input/mice no such file or directory

(EE) Configured mouse: Cannot open input device

(EE) PreInit failed for input device “Configured Mouse”

Fatal server error:Failed to initialize core device

Really, when I checked mouse’s entry into /dev/input, there wasn’t a /dev/input entry.

I solved this problem with following steps:

First check if module to your mouse has been configured on kernel.

devices drivers -> input devices -> mouse

cat /sys/class/input/mice/uevent: Here you should look for major and minor number. Sometimes can be written the same as below:

13:63 where 13 is major number and 63 is minor number.

Now you may to create a new entry to mouse into /dev:

mkdir /dev/input: Creates a directory just to input devices, first verify that it there isn’t.

mknod /dev/input/mice c 13 63: Creates mouse’s entry into /dev/input/. The third parameter is ‘c, because mouse is a character device.
The mknod’s parameters is mknod <entry’s name> <device kind> <major number> <minor number>

If you want to test your mouse now execute following command:

cat /dev/input/mice: Shake your mouse and check if showed up some charactere garbage on your monitor. Case true, your mouse is working correctly.

Finally, execute again your X server.