With KNOPPIX 5.1.1 I got a mouse pointer that moved around almost at random.

The solution was to switch to a console, edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf, replacing the protocol "Microsoft" by "MouseSystems", then kill the Xorg process.

It would be nice if this kind of mouse could work automatically. However, this is probably something for X.Org to fix rather than KNOPPIX, and probably nobody cares about it apart from me.

By the way, my mouse doesn't work automatically with Windows XP, either, and in the case of Windows XP I can't make it work by editing a config file.

Also, it would be nice if KNOPPIX's window manager had keyboard alternatives for mouse operations, such as Alt + cursor keys to move the mouse pointer, etc. (Or would that have to be implemented in the X server, too?) That way the system would at least be usable without a mouse. I think Windows 98 had that and I found it very useful on one occasion when I didn't have a working mouse.