I know this is asked 10000 times, but this is something that was just working a while ago...
I have RH8 and I was trying to change my mouse type (menu ->system setting -> mouse).....the mouse messed up and I rebooted and then it was fine and the good thing was that I could use the mousewheel.
Well, I reinstalled redhat again and now I dont know which mouse to choose to be able to use the mousewheel. I have a MS intelliExplorer connected at ps2
any ideas?

If you want to your wheel to work...it is probably just as easy to edit the XF86Config file.

On RedHat it is located in /etc/X11/

Look for the "Pointer section" and then make it look basically like this:

# Pointer section
# **********************************************************************

Section "Pointer"
Protocol "IMPS/2"
Device "/dev/mouse"

# For wheel support - can not be used with Emulate3Buttons
#
ZAxisMapping 4 5

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

# Baudrate and SampleRate are only for some Logitech mice
# BaudRate 9600
# SampleRate 150

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

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

EndSection

The main part is the ZAxis mapping part. Oh and make sure not to turn on 3 button emulation.

Will that work for logitech cordless optical mice too?

I honestly haven't tried....

Do you have the optical mouse working except for the wheel?

hey.. I tried that script and it compeletly messed up X!!!
well there wasnt a section for POINTER, so I just copy and pasted your code at the end of that file that you told me. When I rebooted, instead of seeing X, I just saw a blue screen with some ascii codes on it!!
I had to use my other linux os to edit the file and change it to its original state....why did that happen

Very sorry to hear that.

I'm not sure why that would have happened....other than maybe it wrapped lines when you did that copy paste or something? What file did you copy and past that into? That exerpt was from a RedHat generated XF86Config file, the only modification was in the pointer section. If it would help I can give you a copy of my whole XF86Config file....just don't use it to replace your existing, but only for comparison.

Do you at least have that machine bootable again.

The main concern is that you should have a section for your mouse somewhere in your configuration file and you need to make sure emulate 3 buttons is turned off and that the Z axis is set.