Arch Linux

frivoal

Member

Registered: 2007-04-02

Posts: 5

Globaly happy, but a few problems

Hi all,

After a few years alternating between gentoo and debian, feeling they were ok, but not exactly what I wanted, I found Arch, and now I am happy. It feels just right. I am still very new (two days), but I am already quite sure I'll settle here.

But happyness and warm feelings asides, I have a few problems I'd like to get some help about. 3 problems exactly.

problem 1: if I boot in text mode, log in as root, and type "/etc/rc.d/gdm start", gdm starts as excpeted, I can log in, and every thing is fine. if I add gdm as the last element of the DEAMON=( ..... ) in rc.conf, gdm starts as expected in the end of the boot process, but the keyboard does not work. can't log in, can't ctrl+alt+supr, can't ctrl+alt+backspace. nothing. The mouse is fine, though. Any idea?

here is my deamons entry.

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng network openntpd !netfs crond fam hal alsa gpm )

problem 2: my CD drive is not recognized. my hard drive and its partitions show up correctly, but I don't get a cd drive.

problem 3: On the boot process, a lot of time (2 minutes or so) is spend scanning the ATA bus. relevant messages are as follow (plus a few lines before and after just to give context)

Freeing unused kernel memory: 256k freed
Time: acpi_pm clocksource has been installed.
ACPI: Unable to derive IRQ for device 0000:00:10.0
ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:10.0[A]: no GSI
ata1: PATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x1F0 ctl 0x3F6 bmdma 0x2000 irq 14
ata2: PATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0x2008 irq 15
scsi0 : pata_ali
ata1.00: ATA-5, max UDMA/100, 78140160 sectors: LBA 
ata1.00: ata1: dev 0 multi count 16
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/100
scsi1 : pata_ali
ata2.00: ATAPI, max UDMA/33
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/33
scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      IC25N040ATCS04-0 CA4O PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
ata2: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0xd0)
ata2: soft resetting port
ata2.00: model number mismatch 'QSI CD-RW/DVD-ROM SBW-241' != ''
ata2.00: disabled
ata2: soft resetting port
ata2.00: ATAPI, max UDMA/33
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/33
ata2: EH complete
res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
ata2: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0xd0)
ata2: soft resetting port
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/33
ata2: EH complete
res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
ata2: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0xd0)
ata2: soft resetting port
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/33
ata2: EH complete
res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
ata2: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0xd0)
ata2: soft resetting port
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/33
ata2: EH complete
usbcore: registered new interface driver usbfs
usbcore: registered new interface driver hub
usbcore: registered new device driver usb

problem 2 and 3 are probably related, and linked to the new pata system in the kernel, but I don't really know anything about it, and my understanding of the mkinitcpio is very very limited. here is mine anyway, comments stripped.

MODULES="pata_ali"
BINARIES=""
FILES=""
HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata usbinput keymap filesystems"

I had it with

MODULES="pata_ali ata_generic"

and with scsi in the HOOKS as the result of the install, but the behavior was exactly the same.

Oh, and the machine I am using is a 4 year old laptop. Nothing in there is scsi or sata.

I hope anyone can help me with those.

Thanks

frivoal

Member

Registered: 2007-04-02

Posts: 5

Re: Globaly happy, but a few problems

I solved my first problem, without fully understanding why. I had added a few more consoles via /etc/inittab. 10 instead of the usual 6. I don't know why that should prevent gdm to work while in the boot sequence (and not otherwise), but anyway, I am back to 6, and gdm's problem is gone.

The other two problems are still there, though.