The following command can be used to switch the left and right mouse button functions in X Window System:
xmodmap -e 'pointer = 3 2 1 4 5'
The example applies for a five button mouse, and the numbers represent which functions to map the mouse with respect to the default settings. The first digit means the left mouse button, the second middle (scroll) click, the third the right mouse button and the last two are for mouse wheel up and down. With a three button mouse you can omit the last two digits and with a seven button mouse you can add the two missing digits.
If you want to set the cursor to, say, a non-blinking one, one way to do it seems to be to install and use the xfce settings manager. You'll find what cursor stuff there is - which regrettably doesn't include cursor width, which can be very important to users with even slight visual impairment - under the keyboard settings dialog. To install and use the xfce settings manager see keyboard settings.
sudo apt-get install lxinput