gpm: Command Line
2.2 Command Line Options
========================
Available command line options are the following:
'\-a ACCEL'
Set the acceleration value used when a single motion event is
longer than DELTA (see '\-d').
'\-A[LIMIT]'
Start up with selection pasting disabled. This is intended as a
security measure; a plausible attack on a system seems to be to
stuff a nasty shell command into the selection buffer ('rm \-rf /')
including the terminating line break, then all the victim has to do
is click the middle mouse button .. As of version 1.17.2, this has
developed into a more general aging mechanism; the gpm daemon can
disable (_age_) selection pasting automatically after a period of
inactivity. To enable this mode just give the optional LIMIT
parameter (no space in between !) which is interpreted as the time
in seconds for which a selection is considered valid and pastable.
As of version 1.15.7, a trivial program called 'disable-paste' is
provided. The following makes a good addition to '/etc/profile' if
you allow multiple users to work on your console.
'case $( /usr/bin/tty ) in
/dev/tty[0\-9]*) /usr/bin/disable-paste ;;
esac'
'\-b BAUD'
Set the baud rate.
'\-B SEQUENCE'
Set the button sequence. '123' is the normal sequence, '321' can
be used by left-handed people, and '132' can be useful with
two-button mice (especially within Emacs). All the button
permutations are allowable.
'\-d DELTA'
Set the delta value. When a single motion event is longer than
DELTA, ACCEL is used as a multiplying factor. (Must be 2 or above)
'\-D'
Do not automatically enter background operation when started, and
log messages to the standard error stream, not the syslog
mechanism. This is useful for debugging; in previous releases it
was done with a compile-time option.
'\-g NUMBER'
With glidepoint devices, emulate the specified button with tapping.
NUMBER must be '1', '2', or '3', and refers to the button number
_before_ the '\-B' button remapping is performed. This option
applies to the mman and ps2 decoding. No button is emulated by
default because the ps2 tapping is incompatible with some normal
ps2 mice
'\-h'
Print a summary of command line options.
'\-i INTERVAL'
Set INTERVAL to be used as an upper time limit for multiple clicks.
If the interval between button-up and button-down events is less
than LIMIT, the press is considered a double or triple click. Time
is in milliseconds.
'\-k'
Kill a running gpm. This can be used by busmouse users to kill gpm
before running X (unless they use '\-R' or the single-open
limitation is removed from the kernel).
'\-l CHARSET'
Choose the 'inword()' look up table. The CHARSET argument is a
list of characters. '\-' is used to specify a range and '\ ' is
used to escape the next character or to provide octal codes. Only
visible character can appear in CHARSET because control characters
can't appear in text-mode video memory, whence selection is cut.
'\-m FILENAME'
Choose the mouse file to open. Must be before \-t and \-o.
'\-M'
Enable multiple mode. The daemon will read two different mouse
devices. Any subsequent option will refer to the second device,
while any preceding option will be used for the first device. This
option automatically forces the _repeater_ ('\-R') option on.
'\-o LIST-OF-EXTRA-OPTIONS'
The option works similary to the "\-o" option of mount; it is used
to specify a list of "extra options" that are specific to each
mouse type. The list is comma-separated. The options 'dtr', 'rts'
or 'both' are used by the serial initialization to toggle the modem
lines like, compatibly with earlier gpm versions; note however that
using \-o dtr associated with non-plain-serial mouse types may now
generate an error. 
Mouse Types. And by the way, use \-o
after \-m and after \-t.
'\-p'
Forces the pointer to be visible while selecting. This is the
behaviour of 'selection-1.7', but it is sometimes confusing. The
default is not to show the pointer, which can be confusing as well.
'\-r NUMBER'
Set the responsiveness. A higher responsiveness is used for a
faster cursor motion.
'\-R[NAME]'
Causes 'gpm' to act as a repeater: any mouse data received while in
graphic mode will be produced on the fifo '/dev/gpmdata' in
protocol NAME, given as an optional argument (no space in between
!). In principle, you can use the same names as for the '\-t'
option, although repeating into some protocols may not be
implemented for a while. Mouse Types. In addition, you
can specify 'raw' as the NAME, to repeat the mouse data byte by
byte, without any protocol translation. If NAME is omitted, it
defaults to 'msc'. Using gpm in repeater mode, you can configure
the X server to use its fifo as a mouse device. This option is
useful for bus-mouse owners to override the single-open limitation.
It is also an easy way to manage those stupid dual-mode mice which
force you to keep the middle button down while changing video mode.
The option is forced on by the '\-M' option.
'\-s NUMBER'
Set the sample rate for the mouse device.
'\-S COMMANDS'
Enable special-command processing, and optionally specify custom
commands as a colon-separated list. See above for a detailed
description of special commands.
'\-t NAME'
Set the mouse type. Use '\-t help' to get a list of allowable
types. Since version 1.18.1, the list also shows which protocols
are available as repeaters (see \-R above), by marking them with an
asterisk ("*"). Mouse Types. Use \-t after you selected
the mouse device with \-m.
'\-v'
Print version information and exit.
'\-2'
Force two buttons. This means that the middle button, if any, will
be taken as it was the right one.
'\-3'
Force three buttons. By default the mouse is considered to be a
2-buttons one, until the middle button is pressed. If three
buttons are there, the right one is used to extend the selection,
and the middle one is used to paste it. Beware: if you use the
'\-3' option with a 2-buttons mouse, you won't be able to paste the
selection.
Menu
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gpm: Special Commands
gpm: Server Invocation
gpm: Bugs and Problems