Say Y here if your machine has a bus mouse as opposed to a serial mouse. Most people have a regular serial MouseSystem or Microsoft mouse (made by Logitech) that plugs into a COM port (rectangular with 9 or 25 pins). These people say N here.
If you have a laptop, you either have to check the documentation or experiment a bit to find out whether the trackball is a serial mouse or not; it's best to say Y here for you.
This is the generic bus mouse driver code. If you have a bus mouse, you will have to say Y here and also to the specific driver for your mouse below.
This code is also available as a module ( = code which can be inserted in and removed from the running kernel whenever you want). The module will be called busmouse.o. If you want to compile it as a module, say M here and read Documentation/modules.txt.
This is for machines with a mouse which is neither a serial nor a bus mouse. Examples are PS/2 mice (such as the track balls on some laptops) and some digitizer pads. Most people have a regular serial MouseSystem or Microsoft mouse (made by Logitech) that plugs into a COM port (rectangular with 9 or 25 pins). These people say N here. If you have something else, read the Busmouse-HOWTO, available from <http://www.tldp.org/docs.html#howto. This HOWTO contains information about all non-serial mice, not just bus mice.
If you have a laptop, you either have to check the documentation or experiment a bit to find out whether the trackball is a serial mouse or not; it's best to say Y here for you.
Note that the answer to this question won't directly affect the kernel: saying N will just cause the configurator to skip all the questions about non-serial mice. If unsure, say Y.
The PS/2 mouse connects to a special mouse port that looks much like the keyboard port (small circular connector with 6 pins). This way, the mouse does not use any serial ports. This port can also be used for other input devices like light pens, tablets, keypads. Compaq, AST and IBM all use this as their mouse port on currently shipping machines. The trackballs of some laptops are PS/2 mice also. In particular, the C&T 82C710 mouse on TI Travelmates is a PS/2 mouse.
Although PS/2 mice are not technically bus mice, they are explained in detail in the Busmouse-HOWTO, available from <http://www.tldp.org/docs.html#howto>.
When using a PS/2 mouse, you can get problems if you want to use the
mouse both on the Linux console and under X. Using the "-R" option
of the Linux mouse managing program gpm (available from
<ftp://gnu.systemy.it/pub/gpm/>)
solves this problem, or you can get
the "mconv2" utility from
<ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/system/mouse/>.