Re: round 2

["SN_Diamond" <Norman.Diamond@example.com>]

Peter Evans wrote:

> Thank you, Norman and John. Since RH 6.2 installation didn't croak when
> it encountered the PCMCIA gubbins in that computer, I trust that RH 7.1
> installation won't croak either. We'll see. . . .

You should never trust anything that way.

Consider a computer that has no PS/2 ports.  The keyboard connects to a USB
port, and the keyboard contains a PS/2 port for a PS/2 mouse only.  The
computer's BIOS emulates the keyboard and mouse until something (OS,
installer, whatever) detects the USB devices.  Then the BIOS emulation stops
and only the USB devices themselves remain visible.

RH 6.0 had no problem.  It didn't know what USB was, and it thought the
keyboard and mouse were PS/2 devices.

RH 7.0 can't install.  The installer detects the USB devices, BIOS emulation
stops, the installer decides that the mouse is a USB mouse, and the
installer decides that the keyboard is something that the installer doesn't
want to listen to.  Doesn't matter if it's text mode or graphical mode, it's
pretty hard to do an install without keyboard input.

With a borrowed keyboard (containing a USB hub for USB mouse only) and a
borrowed USB mouse, 7.0 could be installed.  Then /etc/rc.sysinit could be
edited so that the OS would talk to the original keyboard and mouse, and the
borrowed devices could be returned.

Then I built kernel 2.4.2.  Then there was again no way to make the OS talk
to the keyboard.  Though actually just now I wonder, if I rebuild the kernel
to omit all USB support, maybe BIOS emulation will continue?

Actually I think I've also just remembered, after RH 7.0 was installed, the
default kernel (2.2.16) died during booting as soon as it started up PCMCIA.
Again RH 6.0 didn't have that problem.

New versions of Linux do have new bugs, just like new versions of
monopolyware.

Sincerely,
Norman Diamond