[CLUE-Tech] odd mouse problems with gentoo

[Evan Widger]

just installed gentoo on my desktop, using 2.4.24 kernel and whatever 
the latest X is (4.3?)

my mouse (logitech optical usb w/wheel) is detected at boot as an hid 
device, and attached to /dev/usb/hid/hiddev0. i simlinked this to 
/dev/usbmouse (/dev/mouse wasn't letting me simlink for some reason). i 
told x to use /dev/usbmouse. when i cat /dev/usbmouse and move the mouse 
i get all sorts of weird characters, so i know it's working (other 
places commonly used for mouse like /dev/mouse and /dev/input/mice don't 
have any output from a cat).

when i run startx the nvidia splash screen comes up and whatever that 
ugly default WM is. depending on the protocol used, i get different 
behaviors. 'auto' leaves the screen on the wm and locked up, hitting 
ctl+alt+Backspace kills it, after a minute or 2. with IMPS/2, all mouse 
movements send it down and to the left. with 'PS/2' it moves very 
erratically and behaves like it's clicking all over the place (so much 
random movement it even crashed X once). ExplorerPS/2 is similar to 
IMPS/2 with down/left movements and other random things.

i've looked at the docs on xfree's website, searched the gentoo forums, 
and even asked in freenode.net/#gentoo. nobody seems to know what's 
going on. the mouse works fine in windows and freebsd (with the same 
version of x) and the slax livecd (a livecd version of slackware, think 
zipslack with a gui).

i'm not sure if it's an X issue or a kernel/driver issue. i believe i 
have all the right things selected in the kernel for usb mouse 
operation, i can post the relavent parts of my kernel .config file.

thanks in advance...

-evan (posting from windows unfortunately)