Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 21:49:08 -0800 (PST) From: Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com> To: Kazutaka YOKOTA <yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp> Cc: Warner Losh <imp@harmony.village.org>, Jesper Skriver <jesper@skriver.dk>, Robert <robert@chalmers.com.au>, freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG, yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp Subject: Re: uh oh - after 4 -> 4.2 cvsup, no keyboard. any ideas? Message-ID: <200102110549.f1B5n8A29927@earth.backplane.com> References: <20010204112503.E71706@skriver.dk> <EJEPLCEELLLLAMPNEJMHIECHCLAA.robert@chalmers.com.au> <200102110424.f1B4OVW18984@harmony.village.org> <200102110446.f1B4ksR29654@earth.backplane.com> <200102110525.OAA06084@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp>
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:> It's probably the stupid USB keyboard mod, which disables the standard
:> keyboard when no keyboard is attached during boot, unless you specify
:> flags 0x1 for the keyboard controller, even if no USB keyboard is found.
:
:No, this is not true. Syscons uses whatever keyboard that is available
:at boot. If both the AT keyboard and the USB keyboard are attached
:and detected, the one which are detected first will be used; and
:that is the AT keyboard.
Right. What he said (I got the sense of the flag wrong).
:Without the flags 0x1, the AT keyboard driver will ALWAYS install,
:even if an AT keyboard is not attached. This has been the default
:behavior since FreeBSD 1.X, because there are systems (mostly servers)
:to which people want to attach the keyboard only when necessary.
:(I still don't recommend hot plugging the AT keyboard. But, many people
:want it...)
Gee, lets see... how about just about every FreeBSD box sitting in
a colo somewhere. I had a machine blow up and there I was
sitting with a fraggin monitor showing a wonderful DDB> prompt and *NO*
*WAY* to access the box from the console. Oh yah, that was fun... NOT!
For those of us who do not use USB keyboards, having release kernels
suddenly stop working with AT keyboards that don't happen to be plugged
in, even when no USB keyboard is present, and having to remember to
remove the !@#$!@## flag every time we upgrade to a major release,
is a huge and unnecessary pain.
Not to mention this being yet another major pain in the ass for anyone
trying out FreeBSD for the first time and expecting the keyboard to
work no matter when he plugs it in... like every other OS that runs on
an i386!
:This behavior creats problems for those who wants to use the USB
:keyboard which is fully capable of hot plugging/unplugging, because
:syscons will always use the AT keyboard driver even when the AT
That's nice... and what percentage of the FreeBSD crowd happens to use
USB keyboards verses those who don't? I don't think very many people.
It is totally inappropriate to switch the defaults around and frack up
probably 90% of the FreeBSD installs when a small amount of extra work
would have made both keyboards work just dandy.
Changing the default was ill-advised at best, and I think it should be
changed back to normal. If USB keyboard users want to use a USB
keyboard that's fine, but the normal keyboard controller should *NOT*
be disabled as a side effect.
-Matt
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