Problems getting mouse to work

[Jonathan Sunderland]

Title: Jonathan Stationery

I've installed and configured Linux, and got the X display to work (albeit in lo-res) but I get problems with the mouse.   I'm running on a Dell Latitude XPi with trackball, whenever I move the mouse it shoots to the top corner and "jiggles" about. Reading elsewhere indicates there might be a conflict with something called gpm (which I can not find on my machine). Can anyone shed some light on this   Thanks  Jonathan