[plug] Suse 9.1 post install issue...

Bernd Felsche bernie at innovative.iinet.net.au
Fri Oct 8 19:01:25 WST 2004


"Senectus ." <senectus at gmail.com> writes:

>I installed SUSE 9.1 professional on my laptop the other night, (no
>problems at all) I then did an update using YaST (still no issue's)
>Mucked around on it for a few hours surfing over wireless etc then
>shut it down to come to work.

>Now when I start it up My keyboard on the laptop doesn't work.. the
>mouse does and wireless etc still seems fine.  The REALLY strange
>thing is that "sometimes" I can get caps lock on and off and
>sometimes I can't even do that!

Can you do a CTRL-ALT-F1 to get to a text console?

>Any idea what could be causing this or where I should be looking?

Boot into "Failsafe" mode from the initial boot menu. If you can
select stuff on the boot menu using the cursor keys and type stuff
into the prompt space, then the keyboard is basically OK.

If you can login in "Failsafe" and all the keys are OK, then only
the keymapping has been trashed by something. Re-assign the keyboard
type using YaST (it's probably a 104-key emulation with US layout)
which should fix what was broken if the mapping went haywire. You
can do an initial test by typing "init 5" as root at a shell prompt
which will load X and all the associated cargo.

If that works out OK then shutdown and reboot "normally".

If the keyboard is "dead" in Failsafe, then reboot and add a "1"
(digit one) to the prompt field after selecting Failsafe from the
menu. Then press enter. The system will boot into single-user mode
and prompt for the root password. If you can type that and have it
accepted, then there's some sort of driver issue with the laptop.

Fill us in on the details of the hardware and we'll see if there's
something gone wonky.

Some laptops support external PS/2 keyboards. Most support USB
keyboards. *Never* plug a PS/2 keyboard into a "live" system. If the
problem persists, you may well be able to use an external keyboard
to diagnose the system when the laptop's internal keyboard is
unresponsive.
-- 
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