X manager installation changes /dev/mouse from psaux to ttyS0

[BOHICA <COfrog@toast.net>]

For both hamm and slink installs:

On installing the X11 packages (WindowMaker -- hoping to follow it with
fvwm2 or Gnome), my mouse and my modem stopped working.  When I looked
into possible causes I discovered that somewhere in the install,
/dev/mouse => /dev/psaux is changed to /dev/mouse => /dev/ttyS0.

This causes a few problems in that my modem is connected to what the
BIOS calls COM1 (ttyS0) and the mouse is connected to a 6-pin mini DIN
receptacle attached to the motherboards PS/2 mouse port.

Until the X11 install runs, both the modem and the mouse work properly.
After, neither works.

I tried re-symlinking /dev/mouse to /dev/psaux
BOHICA:/dev$ rm mouse
BOHICA:/dev$ ln -s /dev/mouse /dev/psaux
but for some reason this causes /dev/psaux to link to /dev/ttyS0.

So now I have: /dev/mouse => /dev/ttyS0 and /dev/psaux => /dev/ttyS0

Can anyone help me resolve this?  I am quite out of my depth here (not
that I was too deep to begin with).

- BOHICA

---------------------------------------
please CC: me on all replies.