 | | | USB keyboard nightmares | USB keyboard nightmares 2004-11-29 - By Helmut Wirth
Back
Hello,
i 've fiddled around yesterday with a new server (ASUS AP2400R-E1:
mb PR-DLS533/R, cpu dual 3.06 GHz XEON ). We have added an
remote management card (Peppercon Eric-X) which provides KVM over IP.
To achieve this, the Eric card is connected via USB and emulates
an USB keyboard, mouse and (optional) floppy.
The problem is when i turn on "usb legacy support " in the BIOS (to
get the keyboard working in grub) and boot the SMP kernel, the
system clock runs exactly 2.5 times faster. So a "sleep 20 " lasts
exactly 8 secs, a "sleep 40 " 16 secs..... You can imagine i wasn 't
very pleased to see this behavior.
After some digging into the problem i found following results and
workarounds (i tried with 2.4.21-25, 2.4.21-20 and for fun with
an old RH9 kernel, doesn 't make any change):
- "usb legacy " on in BIOS and booting UP kernel - everything works
as expected, no problems
- "usb legacy " on in BIOS and booting SMP kernel default command line -
keyboard works in BIOS and GRUB, but system hangs at USB initialization
(modprobe doesn 't come back from "modprobe usb-ohci ")
- "usb legacy " on in BIOS and booting SMP kernel with "nousb " - keyboard
works in general, but system clock runs 2.5 times faster
- "usb legacy " on in BIOS and booting SMP kernel with "noapic " - keyboard
works, system clock is ok, but you have only one interrupt controller -
a thing which I think is very suboptimal for a production SMP server
system ....
- "usb legacy " off in BIOS and booting SMP kernel default command line -
keyboard works in BIOS and linux, but not in GRUB, everything else
works as expected
So the workaround for us is turning off "usb legacy " in BIOS for normal
operation, only in case you really need to work with GRUB turn "usb legacy "
on and boot UP kernel or SMP kernel with "noapic ".
But in the end i will see this problem solved entirely: either USB-keyboard
should work in GRUB without "usb legacy " turned on or the SMP kernel shouldn 't
have a 2.5-speed system clock with "usb legacy " turned on.
I 've found a kernel-thread which describes exactly this behavior with the same
mainboard and an USB-keyboard in mid-2003, the answer of the kernel crew to the
original poster was he should go behind ASUS to fix their BIOS. The BIOS release
we have here is the latest from June this year so ASUS obviously fixed nothing
in the time between.
My questions now are:
- Are there any other solutions which I 'm not knowing off?
- whom should i notify about this problem: ASUS or should i file a kernel bug
with RedHat (we have only basic subscription of RHEL ES)?
Ciao,
--
Helmut Wirth
wirth@(protected)
-- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---
bison GmbH phone +49 89 / 50 03 91-14
Planegger Str. 16 fax +49 89 / 50 03 91-17
D-82110 Germering http://www.bison-soft.de/
-- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---
--
Taroon-list mailing list
Taroon-list@(protected)
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/taroon-list
|
|
|