I've just installed the 5-22-04 snapshot of SARGE and I'm trying to get X to work properly. I managed to get it to detect my video card, but now I need to get my USB mouse (some Logitech) to work. I tried a bunch of different devices that looked like they might work, and I've hit on one (/dev/psaux) that exists but is not my mouse. When X starts it takes forever to draw the screen (I see garbage for a while) and when it finally draws the screen neither my mouse or keyboard work. I need to know two things: 1) how do I boot Debian without starting X, and 2) how can I find out what device my USB mouse is?

what about /dev/input/mice?(if everything is setup in your kernel)

there is also mdetect i think.
apt-cache search mdetect

-download and burn some kind of livecd (eg knoppix or damnsmalllinux, always usefull to have around)
-boot your computer with it
-mount the partition that contains /etc/
-remove the symlink of your windowmanager in /etc/rc2.d (called S99gdm or S99kdm probably)

you can always make x start automatically afterwards by changing your default runlevel to 3 (in /etc/inittab), or you can make the symlinks back (they point to scripts in /etc/init.d).