Many thanks to Susan, Digge, Adrenolin, JinHo, and others who responded to my call for help in getting my mouse set up.
I think that I have solved my problem with using my PS2 mouse with X. My solution is to not use a PS2 mouse. Use a serial mouse instead. My theory is that the base system for Debian 1.1 does not support PS2 mice for certain non-standard but common hardware configurations. I believe that the root of the problem is somewhere in the land of /dev/. This is certianly speculation on my part, but I do have some evidence to back it up. I will submit a bug report through normal channels and put the details there. Mike