Kernel 2.6.8.1 and non-working keyboard

[leech]

Ok, what's up with that? I installed it the 'debian way' with make-kpkg and the keyboard doesn't work. I have keyboard support for ps/2 compiled in, as well as the i8042 (which it says is required for it as well). When booting up it gives an error about i8042 not being able to be initialized. Anyone else have this problem? I was going to google it, but ran out of time last night. Thanks for any help..

Leech

[Ribbit]

Hmmm, I wonder if this is related to the bug I used to have on my laptop, where the keyboard wouldn't work after the kernel booted? That seems to have been fixed though.

If you're compiling the kernel yourself, all the relevant keyboard stuff gets selected by default unless you've got the CONFIG_EMBEDDED option set (the one which lets you strip out things like I/O schedulers). If you're using that option, you need "i8042 PC Keyboard controller" and "AT Keyboard support" compiled in - make sure they're not modules.

Also, you DON'T want "PCI PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 mouse controller", that's for some strange oddball hardware (see the help). Remember, your PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports are ISA devices, not PCI.

Now, where the hell does your sig come from?

[Kooldino]

Holy crap, I forgot we still had an ISA bus. WOW.

[leech]

D'oh! I bet that's my problem! I think I took out the ISA bus, because I didn't think I needed it... since I have no ISA slots... I'll try that and recompile it.



I was wondering when someone would ask. It's from that show "The Prisoner"

Leech

[leech]

Odd, now Debian has the 2.6.8 kernel in the repository, and it has the same problem (at least the SMP version does) the non-SMP version works, but for some reason now I can't get the nvidia drivers to install for it, using the same methods I used for 2.6.7....

Leech

[Ribbit]

Originally posted by leech
I think I took out the ISA bus, because I didn't think I needed it... since I have no ISA slots...

No, you were right to do that. The ISA bus option just controls whether or not to give the option for certain devices - it doesn't disable any kind of internal support. It should only affect options for hardware which actually plugs into ISA slots (these days), so you should still get options for things like floppy drives and keyboards and parallel ports.

[spadnos]

Did you upgrade this from a 2.4.x installation? (or 2.5.x with x < about 40)

If so, there are additional config options that have to be specified:
CONFIG_INPUT
CONFIG_SERIO
CONFIG_SERIO_I8042
CONFIG_INPUT_KEYBOARD
CONFIG_KEYBOARD_ATKBD

I don't remember which of these show up in the menuconfig/xconfig option lists. I believe that CONFIG_INPUT actually allows you to get to the other input devices.
I think the SERIO/SERIO_I8042 are under one input submenu, and the keyboard options (along with mouse and joystick) are under another.

These were made optional because a lot of embedded devices don't use keyboards (like TIVO, for instance).

- Steve

[leech]

I currently have 2.4.25, 2.6.7, 2.6.8 (SMP and non) all from the debian packages. The 2.6.8.1 I compiled with SMP/SMT (since I have a Hyperthreaded processor). I tried making this "the Debian Way" with make-pkg.

The SMP 2.6.8 kernel in Debian's repository does the same thing as the one I compiled. It states something like "i8042.c can't read CTR while initializing"

The problem I was having with the non-SMP kernel that is in the Debian repository is that I can't get the nvidia drivers (version 6111) to install properly. It starts installing the kernel module, says it reaches 100%, but then the installer just sits there. If I hit Ctrl+C it'll close that out, and it says that the nvidia kernel module is loaded, but I can't startx.

I'm pretty sure I have all of those compiled into the kernel. Once I get GRUB working again so I can boot into linux (I did a repair on windows yesterday...) I'll check to make sure all those are there.

Leech

[leech]

Ok, it's compiled as so...

CONFIG_INPUT Y
CONFIG_SERIO Y
CONFIG_SERIO_I8042 Y
CONFIG_INPUT_KEYBOARD Y
CONFIG_KEYBOARD_ATKBD Y

So all that stuff is right. Now I'll check to see what the Debian 2.6.8-1-686-smp and 2.6.8-1-686 are setup.

And they're also all YES on both kernels. So I'm not sure what the hell is going on.

The 2.6.7-1-686 also has all of them set to Y. So the problem, I would say, is something to do with SMP... though I'm not sure if that's the only difference between 2.6.8-1-686 and 2.6.8-1-686-smp.

Leech

[spadnos]

OK.

There have been some discussions on LKML about keyboard issues, and there was a patch floated around. I'll look for it tomorrow or the day after (or you can search the archives) and let you know which one(s) I'm talking about.

- Steve

[leech]

Well... a big DUH on my part... At some point in time, I had enabled "Plug and play OS" in the BIOS, and just now disabled it and the 2.6.8 smp kernel works!

I'm thinking it conflicted with the APIC or whatever it's called, that the smp kernel uses...

Leech

[leech]

Scratch that, it still only SOMETIMES loads and initializes the keyboard. It keeps saying APIC interrupt error... at least when it's not working.

Leech

[leech]

Ok, found the fix... Well, one of them. You can disable USB legacy support in the BIOS and it works. Or, according to some of the threads I read (I haven't tried this yet) you can compile the usb into the kernel, rather than use it as a module. That supposedly works as well.

Leech