Q: X can't open mouse... won't start. ideas?

[Virtual Origami <bratling iabervon mit edu>]

Hello:

1.  I'm new to the list.  Hi.  I'm Rob. :)
2.  Lost my mouse, X can't open it, but gpm puts a mouse cursor on my 
console (I can wave it around and everything :).  Here's the error and a 
description of what I've done, I'd appreciate any suggestions.  If 
replies are private, I'll summarize to the list what works (or doesn't :)


THE PROBLEM
run startx, toggles to graphics mode, then back to the console.
the error:
[...normal stuff...]
Fatal server error:
Cannot open mouse (No such file or directory)


Originally, I was trying to figure out why the mouse doesn't work properly
under X (moving it causes it to run to the top of the screen) -- it's a
PS/2 mouse, and whether I set the mouse entry in /etc/X11/XF86Config to
Microsoft, PS/2, or IMPS/2 (all to /dev/mouse), it behaves the same.  The
mouse cursor worked fine on the console. 

/dev/mouse
should link to
/dev/psaux
at least, that's how it was before I started screwing with it.

I thought that perhaps /dev/mouse should be symlinked to something else
(was a bad idea in retrospect--x was seeing the mouse, just interpreting
it incorrectly), so I did, and that didn't help (suprise), so I deleted
/dev/mouse and resymlinked it to /dev/psaux, where it was to start with
...  restarted ... and X won't start at all because it can't open the
mouse.  The console cursor was gone, too.  So I tried starting from 
floppy and reinstalling X from the RedHat 6 CD, hoping it would fix 
whatever I screwed up in mouse support.  No go.

Anyway... here's the ls -l output of /dev/mou* and /dev/ps* (sorta, I'm 
transcribing :)

lrwxrwxrwx  root [stuff]  mouse->psaux
crw-rw-rw   root [stuff]  psaux

Can you think of anything obvious I may be missing here?  Or did I just 
really mess up and need to reinstall Linux again?  Thanks if you can 
help...  (I'm doing this all as root, and will return to my normal user 
account once I have it fixed...)

Again, thank you.


Rob
-- 
bratling iabervon mit edu                http://iabervon.mit.edu/~bratling
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
motd:  /earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can.