Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1998 18:11:06 +0200 (CEST) From: "S.C. Sprong" <scsprong@wit381007.student.utwente.nl> To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: kern/7234: keyboard problems during login immediately after boot Message-ID: <199807101611.SAA21205@wit381007.student.utwente.nl>
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>Number: 7234
>Category: kern
>Synopsis: keyboard problems during login immediately after boot
>Confidential: no
>Severity: non-critical
>Priority: low
>Responsible: freebsd-bugs
>State: open
>Quarter:
>Keywords:
>Date-Required:
>Class: sw-bug
>Submitter-Id: current-users
>Arrival-Date: Fri Jul 10 09:20:00 PDT 1998
>Last-Modified:
>Originator: S.C. Sprong
>Organization:
>Release: FreeBSD 2.2.6-RELEASE i386
>Environment:
The machine is a good quality Pentium with proven hardware (for the IBM
PC clone world anyway). There are no silly overclockings or such.
The relevant reatures for this problem are:
- a rather old keyboard connected with a ~2 m elongation(?) cable and a
db/ps2 convertor, which may or may not push this set-up out of spec.
- rc.conf settings:
keymap="us.iso" # keymap in /usr/share/syscons/keymaps/* (or NO).
keyrate="fast" # keyboard rate to: slow, normal, fast (or NO).
keybell="NO" # bell to duration.pitch or normal or visual (or NO).
keychange="NO" # function keys default values (or NO).
cursor="destructive" # cursor type {normal|blink|destructive} (or NO).
scrnmap="NO" # screen map in /usr/share/syscons/scrnmaps/* (or NO).
font8x16="iso-8x16" # font 8x16 from /usr/share/syscons/fonts/* (or NO).
font8x14="iso-8x14" # font 8x14 from /usr/share/syscons/fonts/* (or NO).
font8x8="iso-8x8" #
- a custom rc.local with the following syscons twiddling:
set terminals to 30 rows, iso latin characters
if [ -f /usr/sbin/vidcontrol ]; then
for tty in /dev/ttyv?
do
vidcontrol -f 8x14 iso-8x14.fnt <$tty
vidcontrol VGA_80x30 <$tty
done
fi
as suggested in the freebsd.misc newsgroup some time ago.
>Description:
Sometimes right after booting, the keyboard produces garbage non ASCII
characters which make it impossible to login. There is no discernible
pattern to this character mess. Ctl-D, Ctl-C, etc. don't work.
Remote login reveals that the boot sequence has always completed
successfully. Actions that update or display messages on the console,
such as (remote) su root and (remote) kill -HUP 1, display correctly on
the console (ttyv0), which suggests that the video part of syscons works.
Unplugging or swapping the keyboard doesn't work. I have several brands
of (elderly) keyboards, and this problem happened with all of them.
At one time, login exited on signal 3, but this could be the result of
my clumsy fiddling. The core dump is available on request.
My suspicion is that some hardware timing (reset of the keyboard processor?)
is sometimes off, which triggers a bug in the syscons device driver.
As I started a private problem log with the installation of release 2.2.6,
I do not know whether this problem occurred in earlier versions I used.
>How-To-Repeat:
This problem occurs infrequently, and is not repeatable.
>Fix:
The ability to completely reset the syscons driver would not be a luxury.
A suggested workaround that I haven't tried yet is from problem report
i386/3082:
kbdcontrol -r fast >/dev/ttyv?
which I shall try as soon as the opportunity arises.
As a sidenote: kbd_mode, the suggested panacaea for all keyboard ills, has
not had any effect whatsoever, for good or for bad.
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted:
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