Arch Linux

Mrs.Columbo

Member

Registered: 2008-06-18

Posts: 24

[Solved] PS/2 Keyboard nonfunctional after boot unless replugged

Hi,

Since "the last update" (unfortunately i dont remember all packages that were updated, but kernel was included, had not done one for a week or two), my PS/2 keyboard does not work rightaway after a reboot.

It does work for selection in grub, but when i reach the vt login it does not work anymore. If I plug it out and in again, it works. I can login, startx and it stops again, I need to replug it a second time and it then works perfectly fine.
It is a standard cherry ps/2 keyboard, no special keys at all. Unfortunately I have no clue how to debug this and am very grateful for suggestions.

MC.

edit: current kernel is 3.9.4, system is x86_64

Last edited by Mrs.Columbo (2013-06-10 16:36:30)

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: [Solved] PS/2 Keyboard nonfunctional after boot unless replugged

You can see exactly what was upgarded in the pacman log (/var/log/pacman.log).  Also, non-usb keyboard support should be actually compiled into the kernel itself.  This is why there is a hook with mkinitcpio for usbinput support in the initramfs, but there is no hook for ps/2 here. 

As far as the bootloader having it work, this is because being in the bootloader is somewhat akin to being in a totally different system at that point.  It is basically a very minimal environment in which its primary job is to enable some basic functions for selection of the boot device/partition and then be able to read a few particular filesystems so that it can load the kernel and initramfs.  At that point it simply hands off the system to the kernel, and this initialization of hardware happens all over again.

I have no idea why this might be happening, but I think a good place to start would be to use dmesg to try and see what has happened after you unplug then replug the keyboard.  Obviously some detection is occuring there, so look right after you do it.  Then scroll back in the output and see if you can find anything of similar nature further back in time.  Maybe the hardware is initalizing and failing... or maybe it just never gets started at all.

You might also want to try downgrading the kernel to whatever is the latest one in /var/cache/pacman/pkg that is not the one you jsut upgraded to.  See if that helps.  If it does and then there are versions in between, try going to each consecutive one and see where sh*t goes awry.

Mrs.Columbo

Member

Registered: 2008-06-18

Posts: 24

Re: [Solved] PS/2 Keyboard nonfunctional after boot unless replugged

Thank you for the advice. dmesg showed only the replugging events of the keyboard but nothing of input device "loss".

Anyways, either I had some loose cable connection that I got only right on the 10th replugging or todays kernel update is to credit, the issue resolved itself automagically.

MC.