Moused

moused is a mouse daemon on FreeBSD systems that works with the console driver to support mouse operations in the text console and user programs.^[1] It first appeared in FreeBSD 2.2 and is currently located in /usr/sbin/moused.^[2]

Function

The mouse daemon listens to a mouse port (by default, /dev/psm0) and supplies mouse data to a virtual mouse driver, sysmouse(4). A user process that wants to use the mouse simply opens /dev/sysmouse and reads from it like a normal file. This makes it possible for the console and user processes such as the X Window System to share the mouse. PS2 mice will not need configuration while serial-port mice will.^[3]

Multiple mice can be used at once by starting multiple moused instances.^[4]

See also

• GPM