[solved] Laptop keyb and 2.6.x kernel.. works w/ LiveCD but

[Maqueo]

Hi,

I've been having trouble with the 2.6.x kernels and my laptop's keyboard for months. The only distro that works for my right now is mandy, but I don't really like it.


The keyb works at the grub login, but once it starts loading the kernel, no input works (it like there's no keyboard at all). Everything works fine. No kernel error messages. I've tried pretty much every kernel configuration I could find.

To my surprise, the new 2004.3 using the 2.6.9-r1 kernel DOES work with my keyboard. Lsmod reveils nothing I've been able to use.

Any pointers as to what to try next?

I've noticed this same problem here in the forum (and other forums, but haven't found a solution anywhere).

I'm usings the newest 2.6.9-r6 gentoo-dev-sources at the moment.

TIA,
Maqueo

[Raffi]

The input stuff changed quite a bit at 2.6. I had a lot of trouble with one of my laptop not working with the keyboard or the mouse. What I ended up doing was compiling both the ps/2 legacy mouse stuff and the usb drivers into the kernel (not as modules). I believe it would also work if you did them both as modules and loaded them in the right order (don't remember which needs to be first).

[Maqueo]

[Raffi]

I believe you are right. It took me several hours to get this going when I ran into it. Can you get onto your laptop via the network when it comes up or use a usb keyboard to talk to it? If you can look around while it is running, you might be able to get to the bottom of it. I do believe the problem is with the input subsystem. Looking at /proc/bus/input/devices can be quite informative.

[Maqueo]

No, it's the only computer I have around here, and I haven't got an usb keyboard either... lucky you it only took you a couple of hours... I tried a month ago and had to wipe my gentoo installation, now I'm trying again since yesterday morning

Oh well, I know it's working on the LiveCD so one way or another there has to be a way to make it work...

[kerstman]

I had similar issues a while back in that I could connect to the internet and use my mouse from the live CD but not in my Gentoo install.

It seemed that the change to hotplug behaviour stopped modules being loaded by the kernel at boot time. The anser for me was to emerge hotplug (or use lsmod on both the LiveCD boot and my normal boot and fins the missing modules and add them to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6)

See these threads for help:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=256408&highlight=coldplug+usb

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=257688&highlight=coldplug+usb

[Maqueo]

Hoi kerstman,

Thanks, I had tried that and it wasn't the solution either. I've been compiling kernels like crazy the last couple of days, and I've finally managed to make it work.

Don't ask me how though, I figured something else was missing/interfering, and started trying different combinations. Finally it works When I get some more time I'll start taking options out in order to make it smaller and I'll probably figure out what the problem was, but hey... at least it's working.

It's just a pain to make a tight kernel when you don't know enough about the underlying architecture.

Groetjes,
Maqueo

[Maqueo]

Just a tip in case someone does a search for this problem. The LiveCD kernel was working for me, but trying to copy it didn't. Here's is what I should've done:
(from http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/gentoo-x86-tipsntricks.xml)

Using the LiveCD kernel

If you don't want to compile a kernel yourself you can use the kernel from the LiveCD and copy it to your system. When you come to the point that you're asked to compile a kernel, go to another terminal (press Alt-F2) and log in with the root password you've supplied at the beginning of the installation.

Copy over the kernel and modules to your Gentoo system:

Code Listing 2.6: Copying over the LiveCD kernel

(${KN} is the kernel name, usually something like 'gentoo' or 'smp')
cdimage ~# cp /mnt/cdrom/isolinux/${KN} /mnt/cdrom/isolinux/${KN}.gz /mnt/gentoo/boot
cdimage ~# mkdir -p /mnt/gentoo/lib/modules
cdiamge ~# cp -Rp /lib/modules/`uname -r` /mnt/gentoo/lib/modules

Make sure you emerge hotplug and have it added to the boot runlevel. To have all modules that are currently running (from the LiveCD) loaded during bootup of your Gentoo system, run the following command from within the chrooted environment:

Code Listing 2.7: Adding all running modules to the modules.conf file

# cat /proc/modules | cut -d ' ' -f 1 >> \
/etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-`uname -r | cut -d . -f -2`
# modules-update

[kerstman]

Hey Maqueo,

Thanks for acknowledgiing the comment... but I just re read what I wrote and I noticed a massive mistake. I meant to say that I emerge coldplug (not hotplug) and added this to runlevel default and this solved several problems for me.

Many many apologiies if I wasted your time here... I'll try to actually type what I meant next time and not get too excited because I think I've got an answer

[Maqueo]