Re: Keyboard is frozen on boot of 2.3.41

[Jeremy Fitzhardinge]

On 29-Jan-00 Linus Torvalds wrote:
> Hmm. Somebody else reported a problem with keyboards and USB enabled. I
> know you had USB on earlier, can you check that?
> 
> In fact, I have a few reports from you that seem to imply that the same
> kernel sources have worked for you or not, depending on exact
> configuration options. One of the differences I see in your previous
> working/nonworking setup (using 2.3.38) is that a previous try with USB
> enabled caused problems, while USB off worked.

I've had a problem with the keyboard/trackpad freezing with USB enabled on my
Sharp Actius A100 laptop.

The problem is the PS/2 mouse driver is most unhappy about sharing its
interrupt with anything else.  It wants IRQ 12, and if the USB controller also
gets IRQ 12 the keyboard (and mouse) locks up as soon as you touch the mouse.

Killing all processes which want to use the mouse (gpm, X) frees it all up, but
as soon as you open the mouse device and touch the mouse, mouse and keyboard
just stop.

I found that unsetting "Plug-n-play OS" in the BIOS prevented USB and PS/2 from
being assigned a new interrupt.  I'm having a problem with the new PCMCIA stuff
as well, which is also trying to assign IRQ 12 to the PCMCIA controller.

I also saw the same problem with 2.2.14, but the mouse driver seemed to free
itself up after a couple of seconds; it also seemed much less likely that
they're assigned the same IRQ.  With 2.3.40, it seems to just lock forever.

        J