not sure why the mouse would stop working... when dealing with brand new (which in linux terms means less than a year old, you'll find) hardware i typically try to use slackware-current, that is, the whole distro from -current. this is actually pretty easy to do if you have a dvd writer working under linux. download the whole slackware-current directory, and follow the directions in the isolinux dir to make a bootable iso. those directions are newbie friendly.

Thats what I was just figuring out how to do. How do I download the entire -current directory? I tried wget and ftp and it wouldn't let me download directories... >.<

try using ncftp to connect to a slackware mirror

cd into the slackware-current directory

and then issue:

get -R -T

that should download everything in the current directory, including folders and subfolders (i think)

Okay. Gonna give it a go. I just downgraded back to the old kernel/modules/source and my mouse works again. ROFL. This is a rollercoaster.

EDIT: I tried "get -R -T slackware" to get just the packages, and that didn't work... It grabbed the top level files and made the subfolders, but didn't go any deeper. :(

you need the whole deal (all the files) but that's a seperate issue from your ftp problems. got a windows box? download on that, burn the whole directory tree to a dvd, move it to your linux laptop, copy the contents of your cd to the hd, read the commands in the isolinux dir, and you should be able to make a dvd bootable iso no problem.

goin to bed, we can continue tomorrow night!

Lol. Nice... Thanks for all of your help! I hope to have this thing working sometime soon!

UPDATE...

I have the new slackware-current installed and my video is okay looking and my sound works. I followed your instructions for my wireless, duhwhat, and I have the 4965 info in lsmod and I edited the rc.inet1.conf file and updated everything to my correct info. I made sure my essid was correct and in quotes, my WEP key is correct and such. I still cannot connect to my wireless for some reason. I can iwconfig and it shows the wlan0 info, just no signal strength, connection, or ESSID. Any help?