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I installed Debian 6 on my Macbook in a dualboot configuration. Everything is working fine, except for the keyboard.

As I'm typing, I see the mouse arrow moving a bit and strange things happen, such as text under the arrow becomes highlighted or clicked. Other things such as Right-Click, selecting text and other mouse-related events also happen.

It's really hard to type like this! Does anyone have any ideas of what might be the cause and how I can fix this?

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  • Have logged out and in again? Have you restarted the whole system? What Desktop Environment are you using?
    – tshepang
    Commented Mar 6, 2011 at 20:08
  • Yes, I have done all that. I'm using Gnome. I have no idea what it can be...
    – Bernardo O
    Commented Mar 10, 2011 at 2:24
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    Could you include the output of xinput list? (xinput is also the package name) Sounds like your keyboard is taken to be a mouse, too - I had a similar issue with an Apple wireless keyboard detected as a mouse (without any weird behavior following, but it just reminds me)
    – sr_
    Commented Oct 18, 2011 at 11:32
  • @sr_ Thanks - your xinput list suggestion led me to a solution, below. Hopefully solves OP's too!
    – Engineer
    Commented Jul 17, 2016 at 18:50

1 Answer 1

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I was having a similar problem for a couple of weeks (Debian 8 Jessie, Macbook Pro July 2012). Every time I hit / held a key down, the mouse would stutter across the screen, even as everything else ran at a normal speed. I was examining this in the code of a game I'm writing, so I could see the nature of mouse input changing as a key was held - those values reflected getting fewer mouse events with larger deltas.

Today I found the solution thanks to @sr_ in comments above, and cvasalik in this thread.

Apparently Debian on Macbook Pro installs a mouse emulator on your MBP keyboard.

$ sudo apt-get install xinput
$ xinput list

You should see something like:

⎡ Virtual core pointer                      id=2    [master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer                id=4    [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB Receiver                     id=10   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB Receiver                     id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Mouseemu virtual mouse                    id=18   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ bcm5974                                   id=16   [slave  pointer  (2)]
⎣ Virtual core keyboard                     id=3    [master keyboard (2)]
    ↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard               id=5    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=6    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Video Bus                                 id=7    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Power Button                              id=8    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Sleep Button                              id=9    [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)             id=12   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Mouseemu virtual keyboard                 id=17   [slave  keyboard (3)]
    ↳ Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad id=15   [slave  keyboard (3)]

See that Mouseemu on the keyboard? It's there by default. Get rid of it with:

$ sudo apt-get remove mouseemu

And hopefully your heebie-jeebies will go away.

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