Bug#369048: Keyboard freezes as soon as the boot loader starts, but system works (Linux 2.6.15, HP Netserver LP1000r, Symbios Logic 53c1010 Ultra3 SCSI)
Hi Frans,
Many thanks for the answer. Here are some additional notes, questions and
thoughts.
> On Saturday 27 May 2006 02:24, Olivier Lange wrote:
> > Immediately after the GRUB boot loader starts for the first time, the
> > keyboard freezes and the lights/leds start to blink quite quickly in
> > sequence from right to left.
>
> That is totally weird. There is no real reason why running the grub
> installer should interfere with the keyboard. There must be something
> more structural going on.
Do you know if this blinking means something explicit?
Would GRUB would try to 'notify' something thru the flashing keyboard
lights?
> > The system then automatically boots the first entry from the GRUB
> > menu and starts normally all operations. It can be accessed thru the
> > network SSH console once started. No problems reported within 'dmesg'.
>
> You mean after completing the rest of the installation normally? How did
> you manage that if the keyboard stopped working after grub installation?
> If the installation was not finished normally, you've basically got a
> broken system as there are several scripts needed to complete the
> installation that have not been run and a number of these concern
> localization.
Sorry, I haven't been precise enough: the keyboard freezes and starts
blinking at the GRUB bootloader menu, *after* the reboot. I can complete the
d-i installation process without trouble, and ask for reboot. So the d-i
stages work well.
However, as soon as the boot loader (GRUB or LILO) starts, the keyboard
freezes and remains inaccessible all time. So it seems to be an issue with
the boot loader keyboard handler.
The system boots the first GRUB menu entry after the timeout and starts
normally. Once the SSH daemon is loaded, I can indeed access it thru the
network console.
Some additional info, I tried some other installs: among them, I tried to
choose a ISO-8859-1 locale, as well as the USB keyboard style; but same
outcome, PS/2 keyboard freezes at the GRUB menu.
How did I solve the problem?
The problem was actually: the system works; but if for any reason the system
needs an 'fsck' at boot, it asks to press 'Enter' (to check the filesystem)
or 'CTRL-D' (to resume booting). With a PS/2 frozen keyboard, and the SSH
daemon not being loaded at that time, the remains is definitively unusable!
:-/
I solved the problem while attaching an additional USB keyboard: it is not
accessible at the BIOS and GRUB boot loader stages, but I noticed that it
is, when the 'fsck' happens. So I have now two keyboards attached: one on
the PS/2 port for the rare BIOS operations, and one on a USB port, for the
Linux console... ^^o)
> If you can access the system using ssh, you may be able to repair things
> manually, but figuring how exactly what needs fixing may be hard.
> It would be better to try to trace what is causing the problem
> during grub installation.
>
> > Would you have any suggestion on why the keyboard freezes and how to
> > solve it?
>
> No, not really. What we can do is help you try to trace the problem, but
> that will probably require several reinstalls.
Now that the system installation is almost complete (Apache2, SVN, Trac,
MySQL, Java, Daisy, ...) I would rather not reinstall the system. However, I
would of course try to further trace the problem.
Some ideas:
* The problem seems to happens between the BIOS loading the MBR, and the
MBR bootstrap loading GRUB. Does GRUB activate a specific keyboard handler
that could be source of trouble? (with a Windows 2000 installation, keyboard
is available at boot time, no trouble)
* Another possibility: I noticed that, when I ask for reboot from the d-i,
the d-i installs some last localization packages. Could it be that these
packages be the source of the trouble, once activated (they are not active
during d-i, as they are installed at the very end)? Are they then used by
GRUB?
WDYT? What should I check?
Cheers,
--
Olivier
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