Problem changing monitor and mouse

[John]

I installed Warty today on a Dell with an Intel 810 chipset including 
graphics. I'd give more detail, but of course Warty doesn't intall ssh 
by default and so I can't get at it.


It had a cheap 15" monitor and an HP PS/2 wheelie mouse attached.

It was working.

I shut it down, took i to work and attached a nice bug sunscreen and a 
MS Intelimouse.

It booted. No mouse. Lots of stuffing round. mdetect finds it. Xfree 
couldn't find it at /dev/psaux or at /dev/input/mice.

Eventually I plugged in an IBM USB kbd that has a PS/2 socket for a PS/2 
mouse and that works.

The other problem is the screen. Mostly I configure screens like this:

Section "Monitor"
         Identifier      "Generic Monitor"
#        HorizSync       30-96
#        VertRefresh     48-160
         Option          "DPMS"
EndSection


XFree seems able to detect most monitors these days and in my experience 
you don't need much at all.

I also have a Screen section like this:
Section "Screen"
         Identifier      "Default Screen"
         Device          "Generic Video Card"
         Monitor         "Generic Monitor"
         DefaultDepth    16
         SubSection "Display"
                 Depth           16
                 Modes           "1600x1200" "1280x1024" \
		"1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
         EndSubSection
EndSection

These examples are taken from Sarge since I can't get at the U box not. 
I'm pretty sure I didn't have the modes line; I'll try one tomorrow.


Anyway, it should kust work, and I expected it would. The user should 
not have to run dpkg-reconfigure, and especially the user shouldn't have 
to answer lots of tricky technical questions.


As it's turned out it would have been easier to simply reinstall.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?