Arch Linux

HappyClown

Member

Registered: 2015-08-15

Posts: 161

[Solved] Keyboard works in BIOS menu but not when booted into HDD or l

My desktop has run into some interesting symptoms. SSH connections into the device are refused. No biggie, I thought I'd log in physically and run an update. The thing is, the keyboard wouldn't work, so I rebooted. I booted back in with the keyboard working fine in the bios menu, the bootloader, but not the OS. I plugged in the latest arch installer to chroot and update/reinstall, but even when booted into there the keyboard wont work. This is above my head. I've tried all the different USB ports on my system with no change. Can anyone recommend anything I should try?

Last edited by HappyClown (2018-09-28 09:16:59)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,435

Re: [Solved] Keyboard works in BIOS menu but not when booted into HDD or l

What's your keyboard? There have been some (specific) keyboard related issues in earlier 4.18 kernels, afaik most of those should be fixed by 4.18.9. I'd suggest chrooting from a (older..., that's really bad luck that the current live iso might be running a kernel that has this effect) live system and running  a full system update and retry, maybe install a backup kernel like LTS if you are indeed running into the issue I'm thinking of).

HappyClown

Member

Registered: 2015-08-15

Posts: 161

Re: [Solved] Keyboard works in BIOS menu but not when booted into HDD or l

It's an Acer OM-130006A/K. If this is a keyboard issue, I'll try a few other keyboards I have. I'd be glad to help anyone figure out what the issue may be, since this is my current favourite keyboard. Is this an issue with the upstream kernel or Arch's particular build of it?

Edit:
I plugged in my other keyboard, it worked flawlessly. I did an update and rebooted and now the other one suddenly works. I had no idea keyboards could be so different. I kinda thought all you needed was a single generic keyboard driver and suddenly most keyboards would work. Thanks for the help!

Last edited by HappyClown (2018-09-28 09:16:16)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,435

Re: [Solved] Keyboard works in BIOS menu but not when booted into HDD or l

It is a generic keyboard driver that has a few  quirks for specific extra functionality (or working around hardware bugs...) of certain keyboards. AFAIK one keyboard received a fix for something, but the identificators used to apply that fix have apparently been used by other keyboards that the fix didn't really apply to and that broke things. This interaction has been fixed in the more recent kernels again.