Subject: Re: problems with USB keyboard
To: Lennart Augustsson <lennart@augustsson.net>
From: Steven M. Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
List: netbsd-users
Date: 07/04/2005 10:16:15
In message <42C8FC38.2050603@augustsson.net>, Lennart Augustsson writes:
>This isn't something I can recall ever seeing with a keyboard.
>But it can be a problem with the host controller as well as the
>keyboard.  What are they?
>


Below is a dmesg showing the full configuration.  The motherboard is a 
Soyo KT600 Dragon+, with AMD parts; the keyboard is an IBM USB Travel 
Keyboard -- a stand-alone Thinkpad keyboard, with touchpad and 
Trackpoint.

Late last night, I noticed a bit more.  The failures seem to be 
correlated with switching to a text console.  When I do that, I noticed 
the light on a (PS/2) mouse going off, which I assume means that the 
device is being closed and power to it turned off.  This keyboard has 
two mouse-equivalents, plus two sets of buttons that I'm using via 
usbhidaction.  I assume -- I haven't looked at the source yet -- that 
the mice-equivalents are closed (powered down?) when I switch to a text 
console; might there be a problem with reopening the mice when the 
keyboard is already open?  

I'm not yet 100% certain of the phenomenon; I reached that tentative 
conclusion pretty late, and each try requires a full reboot into X
because I can't recover once things stall.

		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb