Re: odd PS/2 keyboard fail

[David Young <dyoung%pobox.com@localhost>]

On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 02:24:36AM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
> >> Surely this is not expected behaviour.  Does anyone but me care?
> > Surely people care that a keyboard in a computer works.
> 
> Yes...but I've often enough had people respond to trouble reports with
> "upgrade or we don't care" (though generally phrased rather more
> diplomatically).  I've seen at least two packages say things very much
> like that straight out.  (gcc maybe? dhcp? I forget.)

I know from recent experience that -current has some trouble with
keyboards, too.

My understanding of the keyboard problems in -current and in 5.0 is
fuzzy, but I think that they stem from the multiple personalities and
multiple ownership of devices, which NetBSD does not deal with very
well.  By multiple personalities, I mean the way that a USB keyboard may
present to the OS as either a USB keyboard, an emulated PS/2 keyboard,
or both.  Multiple ownership is the flip-side of multiple personalities:
both BIOS and OS may believe that they "own" the same USB keyboard, and
clash over that keyboard.

Dave

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
dyoung%ojctech.com@localhost      Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933