What I have is a logitech wireless keyboard and mouse and the hub
connects to a usb port. They work fine with Suse linux.

What i did was install kernel 2.4.24 and installed xfree. The keyboard
worked fine all the way but i couldnt get the mouse to work, hence, no
xfree.

After going through tons of literature at Gentoo forums and the like,
and manually configurring the kernel a thousand times and XF86 config
another thousand times, i finally gave up even though at the forums,
others had the same keyboard and mouse working without any difficulty.
Their xfree config file didnt work with mine.

So i gave up.

I reinstalled gentoo with the "newest", " latest" and "greatest"
kernel 2.6.1 and manually configured the kerne :-)

The keyboard and the mouse don't work now :-(

I havent install xfree yet. Without a keyboard and mouse it would be
worthless :-/

So i reconfigured the kernel and placed an " * " or a " M " in every
single, solitary, ( ) and [ ] that I could find in the kernel
menuconfig and STILL no keyboard. Rats! "What the $%)*!@ over?", i
said.

My basic questions are

1.) when I open /usr/src/linux > menuconfig, some of the items listed
there have a " * " already and some already have an "M" . If I
follow the install directions, I'll place an " * " in a few other
places, then save and exit.

#make dep && make bzImage modules modules_install

after completion

#cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel-2.6.1-gentoo-r1
#cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.1-gentoo-r1
#cp .config /boot/config-2.6.1-gentoo-r1


>>does the kernel configurer rewrite the
>>previous configuration every time? and make a whole new set of modules?

and

>>does cp' ing to the /boot directory overwrite the
>>previous arch, System and .config files with the newer configuration?


2.)Is there somewhere else i need to go to get my mouse and keyboard
to work? Like some file someplace? or do i need to can gentoo all
together?

3.) where can i go and get directions on just what is menuconfig doing
with those " * " and "M" 's?

Thanx for your patient reading and answering here...