3 button mouse behavior in RH7.3 and Gnome

[Bruce]

I just completed an install of RH 7.3 and got almost everything right. The
only annoyance (so far) is that the mouse selection behavior in Gnome,
running as root, is not what I was looking for. Oddly, it is correct when
running as a user in gnome. I have no idea what I did to cause user and
superuser to be different. Can somebody educate me on the configuration
parameters; i.e., where does gnome get its selection behavior parameters and
what should they be to set the usual unix-like behavior?

FYI, the desired selection behavior is, when in a terminal window, to select
with a left button click and then paste it on the command line with a middle
button click. Incidentally, in text mode, root is OK, except that instead of
left and middle, it wants middle and right. In gnome, as root, there's no
unix like selection possible, as near as I tell. And, as I said, gnome, in a
user account, is correct.