Keyboard occasionally nonresponsive on bootup with Debian Sid

From: Adam Rosi-Kessel (adam_at_rosi-kessel.org)
Date: 09/19/04

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    Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 17:39:11 -0400
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

    Please cc me on replies.

    I've got a couple of problems for which I can't identify the responsible
    subsystem, so I thought I'd ask in a general forum like this. Here's the
    first:

    Running Debian Sid, various 2.6.x kernels.

    About one out of every three times I boot up my laptop, my keyboard is
    totally unresponsive. The mouse works fine. I can do machine fn-calls,
    e.g., fn-f5 to activate bluetooth, or fn-f7 to switch CRT/LCD. But the X
    server doesn't respond to any keystrokes, and keys like Caps Lock don't
    change the status light. I don't know if the keyboard would work in
    console, since I can't switch over there. (I've never had this problem
    occur when I boot up to a lower runlevel, however).

    I was pretty sure this was linked to my specific hardware, but I recently
    moved from a Dell Latitude to a IBM Thinkpad X40, and still get the same
    behavior. There's very little in common (hardware) between the two
    systems, so I think that excludes hardware.

    On those times when the keyboard doesn't work, it *does* work in the
    bootloader (GRUB); it's only after booting up that the keyboard doesn't
    work.

    Ctrl-alt-del is also non-functional, so the only way I can restart is to
    power off.

    Nothing unusual in the log files. Also occurs with several different 2.6
    kernels, including 2.6.8.1. I'm not sure it has ever happened with a
    2.4.x kernel, but for various reasons I can't use those kernels, so I
    haven't experimented that much.

    Can anyone suggest a way to hunt down this problem? I can't even guess
    the origin.

    (likely irrelevant, but I do get 'atkbd.c: Spurious ACK on
    isa0060/serio0. Some program, like XFree86, might be trying access
    hardware directly.' a lot in dmesg). 

    -- 
Adam Rosi-Kessel
http://adam.rosi-kessel.org
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