I've built a third box to experiment and learn - it's time I really understand the basics! The idea was to have Potato, Storm and three rpm based installations and compare the different ways things are arranged. I've tried to install Storm before but given up as it continually defaulted to PS/2 for the mouse and I couldn't set things up as I wanted. All mice I've used to date have been serial ones.
At a Computer Fair I picked up some cheap CD's for Storm 2.02, Caldera, Turbo and Mandrake and a two button Microsoft Mouse described as 'Mouse Port Compatible Mouse 2.1A' with PS/2 connector. All installations went fine and filled a 10.2Gig IDE hard drive and I used the mouse throughout. Now whilst the mouse works with each of the three non-Debian distros, it does not with either Storm or Potato (I mean within X). I think I've traced the problem but have no idea how to eradicate it. On Potato /dev/mouse is linked to /dev/gpmdata. So it was on Storm until I altered that link to /dev/psaux which I assumed to be correct. The mouse works on neither. I'd not heard of gpm before - I've looked at man gpm but do not completely understand its relevance, is it not for console work? I've installed Kde on Potato and Gnome on Storm - (again for comparison purposes), but can log into neither. How do I deal with this mouse? Grateful for any advice. John.