Install with USB keyboard?

[njh]

Hi Folks,

Does the install kernel on the v1.2 CD image have USB keyboard support? Do I need to do anything to enable it?

When I boot from the CD image that I've downloaded I find that I get stuck very early in the process: when I'm prompted to type a number to choose a keymap, or hit enter to continue, the keyboard is entirely unresponsive.

Should I be able to use my USB keyboard to get started with Gentoo, or do I need to borrow a PS/2 keyboard to bootstrap?

[TheCoop]

didnt your keyboard come with a usb->ps2 adapter?
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[fleed]

He might have one of those motherboards with no PS/2 plug...

[Messiah]

I was being able to do the installation with 1.2 on a system with no PS/2. Didn't do anything else

[phong]

I just did a reinstall recently and my USB HHKB seemed to work just fine. Seems like the CD works just fine with it.
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[njh]

I probably did get an adaptor widgit with the USB keyboard. I couldn't find it when I was hunting though my box-o-bits on Sunday though.

It sounds like keyboards "just work" for at least some USB users. It is quite possible that the USB support on my aging motherboard is to blame (baby-ATX Super Socket 7 thing, hosting a AMD K6-2 processor ... USB was new fangled tech when this thing was designed ).

I borrowed a traditional keyboard to get my installation going. The basic system is up and running with the borrowed keyboard now - I'll have a play with the USB support this evening and see if I can get it to go.

Thanks for the responses.

Regards,

[squanto]

I know on my Epox board that there is an option in bios to have usb keyboard / mouse support turned on, maybe see if yours has that too?
Just an idea, although just using a PS/2 kb would work the easy way.

[RagManX]

On my ABit motherboard, I had go in to the BIOS and set USB keyboard support to BIOS for the install, and then change it back to OS once I'd compiled my kernel with USB support and rebooted.

RagManX
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[phong]

Yes, I like the keyboard very much. I have one at work and one at home (specifically, the HHKB Lite 2 with the arrow keys). In both cases, I was surprised that I appreciated the extra desk space much more than I had expected. It's MUCH smaller. Also, with my hands moving less, I get less fatigued and type somewhat faster. It IS a membrane keyboard, which I prefer (I loathe both the feel and sound of clicky keyboards), but it's not the sort of cheap spongey crap you'd find at Wal-mart, the tactile feedback is pretty crisp - similar to the old Honeywell I just retired, but perhaps a bit more lively.

I do have a few very minor complaints about the layout, but there isn't really anything better out there, so I'm pretty happy. I think the ALT keys could be bigger (they could trim down the spacebar), and I don't know why they put the overlaid arrow keys where they did. I have the true inverted-T arrows in the corner, so it's a minor gripe, but it would have been more useful to put the Fn versions of the arrow keys on ijkl or hjkl (vi style) or esdf or something.

On the USB version, the two downstream ports don't have the additional power you'd get from a powered USB hub or the ports in the back of the computer (since the keyboard needs to use some and doesn't have its own brick), but my optical mouse and compactflash reader both work fine through it.
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"An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head."
-- Eric Hoffer