Greetings, forum dwellers (:

Having recently installed a fresh copy of Slack 9.1 onto an AMD-based box - I have come to find that, no matter what I do, the mouse(A Micrisoft Periwinkle, Wireless Optical Mouse) refuses to behave - skipping all over the screen at a mere nudge - a right click equates to a left, etc.

While i've come accross numerous posts regarding dead mice - i've found nothing regarding jittery mice - perhaps becuase it is a hard term to query for.

As for clues to the root of this problem -- that nifty little app(the name of which escapes me) which allows text to be selected and copied from the text-only runlevel via the mouse behaves in a similar fashion to XFree86 - indicating that the problem exists beyond XFree86. The mouse is connected properly, and i have attempted every conbination of brand/connection feasible. lsmod states that the usbmouse is present, but "not in use".

This feels like a driver issue, but my knowledge of slackware is currently not sufficient to even diagnose the problem - so, can anyone provide a pointer or two? Thanks!

post the pointer section of your XF86Config file, are you using the "IMPS/2" protocol?

(Pointer secntion begins)
# **********************************************************************
# Core Pointer's InputDevice section
# **********************************************************************

Section "InputDevice"

# Identifier and driver

Identifier "Mouse1"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "Microsoft"
Option "Device" "/dev/mouse"

# Mouse-speed setting for PS/2 mouse.

# Option "Resolution" "256"

# When using XQUEUE, comment out the above two lines, and uncomment
# the following line.

# Option "Protocol" "Xqueue"

# Baudrate and SampleRate are only for some Logitech mice. In
# almost every case these lines should be omitted.

# Option "BaudRate" "9600"
# Option "SampleRate" "150"

# Emulate3Buttons is an option for 2-button Microsoft mice
# Emulate3Timeout is the timeout in milliseconds (default is 50ms)

Option "Emulate3Buttons"
# Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"

# ChordMiddle is an option for some 3-button Logitech mice

Option "ChordMiddle"

EndSection
(Pointer section ends)

So no, it's not.

I tried replacing "Microsoft" with "IMPS2" - although I was unsure if the syntax was correct(?).

Well, after many hours of hunting, I just happened accross a working usb -> ps/2 converter.

After abit of tinkering with the mouse config util, all appears to be well. MCD, many thanks for the trouble-shooting-start.

For the benefit of people reading this thread, it turns out that slackware dosn't play nice when the Perikwinkle mouse is used with its (native)usb connector - you'll need that usb->serial converter that came with the mouse.