Question about LINUX

I have recently nuked my hard drive in an attempt to create a dual boot system between Windows 2000 and SuSE Linux version 7.1. Everything with the Windows Installation went great....When I went to install Linux it completed the installation, set up virtually all my hardware automatically, and booted to the logon prompt. I chose KDE as my GUI and it logs me in no problem. the problem comes whenever try to use the mouse to access the taskbar (that's the Windows term anyway). I can use the mouse to double click icons on the desktop and the programs launch with no problems. It's only when I try to click the taskbar. I consider myself beginner Linux user, so maybe I'm doing something wrong from the start I don't know. I did notice something very strange though....on the logon screen there is an analog clock that displays the time it gets from the BIOS (I assume). Whenever I move the mouse semi-fast or extremely fast, the second hand jumps sporacitcally and occasionally the minute hand will too. Maybe it has something to do with interrupts???? Here is some of the hardware in my system..

Dual PIII 500 MHz
Pine Technologies Motherboard
ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon
Monster Sound MX300
Adaptec 2930 SCSI card
DLink 540TX NIC
398 MG RAM


BTW, my mouse is a Microsoft Optical Mouse (I don't think that it should make a difference)

Any help you guys could give me would be great, I can still use text mode, but that's no fun :-)