Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X [Solved]
On 19/11/12 02:13, Frank Peters wrote: Let's consider a case in point from the Gentoo portage tree. I have lots of ebooks in DJVU format, and I really can appreciate the excellent DJVU reader called djview. However, the latest update of djview came as quite a surprise. Apparently, dbus is now required by Gentoo to build the djview-4.9 package and there is no way to avoid it. My make.conf file has -dbus indicated but that means nothing. Choice? What choice? No dbus, no djview. Fortunately, I can compile the djview package myself outside of Gentoo without using dbus, but the case illustrates the fact that even though certain options are available these options are being withheld by the distributors. This would be worthy of a bug report, or at least a discussion with the maintainer. He may not be aware that dbus is not required, or have some logic as to why it has been set as a requirement. If I was in this position and couldn't get the official ebuild modified, I would make a customised ebuild in my local overlay and compile it inside portage but with my ebuild. At least this keeps the system consistent. -- Linux since 1996, Gentoo since 2004
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X [Solved]
On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 18:21:01 -0500 Phil Turmel phi...@turmel.org wrote: I'm not inclined to fork Xorg, so I've sucked it up and joined the udev/evdev world. The problem was a faulty keyboard. In retrospect it would seem obvious, but the fact that I could regain control by stopping X and the fact that there were other recent reports of identical issues prompted me to make a post to this list. For example, see the following link: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-evdev/+bug/1066189 For the time being I can keep using my antiquated input drivers, but eventually I will be forced to adapt by switching to evdev. Yes, *forced*. The freedom of choice is slowly being removed. We are moving toward, a monolithic, one-size-fits-all, Linux. Let's consider a case in point from the Gentoo portage tree. I have lots of ebooks in DJVU format, and I really can appreciate the excellent DJVU reader called djview. However, the latest update of djview came as quite a surprise. Apparently, dbus is now required by Gentoo to build the djview-4.9 package and there is no way to avoid it. My make.conf file has -dbus indicated but that means nothing. Choice? What choice? No dbus, no djview. Fortunately, I can compile the djview package myself outside of Gentoo without using dbus, but the case illustrates the fact that even though certain options are available these options are being withheld by the distributors. Most Linux users probably could not care less about such things, but, for me, the issue of choice is much more than just a philosophical rant. It has significant practical consequences as well, but a discussion of those would be too far off topic. Thanks to all those who offered advice. Frank Peters
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:13:30 -0600 Steven Lembark lemb...@wrkhors.com wrote: Q: What do you need the custom xconfig for? You might find that life is easier if you remove the xorg.conf, switch to evdev as the input, [The following is only an innocent spiel, and is not intended to be in any way unfriendly.] Make life easier? Nothing could be further from the truth. After doing some research into making the supposedly simple change of switching to evdev, I find that I am required to: 1) Reconfigure the kernel to include many things, such as hotplug, which I do not want or need. 2) Install and configure udev, which is a horrendous and totally unwarranted and needless nightmare. 3) Trash my established (and simple) /dev tree 4) Get rid of module-init-tools 5) Many other ridiculous and needless tasks that are associated with all of the above. And for what? Just so that I can joyously sit back and watch X come to life without a configuration file? No thank you. I'll pass. The purpose of the edev driver, as stated in the Gentoo manual, is only this: The evdev driver configures your input devices, as needed, using HAL or udev. This allows for the X server to automatically detect the keyboard and mouse you're using for your input devices, and removes the need to specify your devices in xorg.conf. I am so sorry, but I remain thoroughly unimpressed. I know exactly what is connected to my machine. I do not require some convoluted and barely workable user-space software scheme to figure it out for me. What disturbs me the most, however, is this business about udev. IMO, udev is the most twisted and unnecessary piece of cr** to have ever been foisted upon the Linux world. It is apparently the brainchild of the Freedesktop project, who are always busily creating more bloated graphical extravaganzas in some misguided mission to outdo Microsoft. I refuse to jump on that garish bandwagon. I have *real* computing to accomplish. For me, the appeal of Linux is that it allows the user to configure and customize his system to suit his personal preferences, however bizarre or unconventional those may be. The job of the Linux developers, therefore, should be to maintain that state of openness and not to constrain the user to any particular methodology. IOW, Linux is about *choice* and not about conformity. My choice is simple: absolutely no udev (or any equivalent). If others desire to have it, then that is their choice, but I should never be forced to follow along. Hopefully, Gentoo has not lost this understanding and will strive to maintain the wisdom. Frank Peters
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 1:17 PM, Frank Peters frank.pet...@comcast.net wrote: On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:13:30 -0600 Steven Lembark lemb...@wrkhors.com wrote: Q: What do you need the custom xconfig for? You might find that life is easier if you remove the xorg.conf, switch to evdev as the input, [The following is only an innocent spiel, and is not intended to be in any way unfriendly.] I didn't find it unfriendly; on the contrary, quite informative. Make life easier? Nothing could be further from the truth. After doing some research into making the supposedly simple change of switching to evdev, I find that I am required to: 1) Reconfigure the kernel to include many things, such as hotplug, which I do not want or need. 2) Install and configure udev, which is a horrendous and totally unwarranted and needless nightmare. 3) Trash my established (and simple) /dev tree 4) Get rid of module-init-tools 5) Many other ridiculous and needless tasks that are associated with all of the above. And for what? Just so that I can joyously sit back and watch X come to life without a configuration file? No thank you. I'll pass. The purpose of the edev driver, as stated in the Gentoo manual, is only this: The evdev driver configures your input devices, as needed, using HAL or udev. This allows for the X server to automatically detect the keyboard and mouse you're using for your input devices, and removes the need to specify your devices in xorg.conf. I am so sorry, but I remain thoroughly unimpressed. I know exactly what is connected to my machine. I do not require some convoluted and barely workable user-space software scheme to figure it out for me. I do agree that if you know exactly what is connected to your machine (and this never changes), udev (or mdev, or devfs for that matter) is basically useless. Just take in mind that the majority of users connect and disconnect stuff from their computers/tablets/phones all the time (USB webcams, joysticks, scanners, printers; bluetooth headphones, keyboards, phones; eSATA disks), and therefore the developers tend to care more about that use case, which is the general one and it contains the static one. What disturbs me the most, however, is this business about udev. IMO, udev is the most twisted and unnecessary piece of cr** to have ever been foisted upon the Linux world. It is apparently the brainchild of the Freedesktop project, who are always busily creating more bloated graphical extravaganzas in some misguided mission to outdo Microsoft. Actually, udev was started by kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman. I refuse to jump on that garish bandwagon. I have *real* computing to accomplish. All of us (I would think) have real computing to accomplish. That's why many of us prefer not to worry about xorg.conf (or any other configuration file) every time we change keyboard or mouse. For me, the appeal of Linux is that it allows the user to configure and customize his system to suit his personal preferences, however bizarre or unconventional those may be. As you say, for you. For many others the appeal is different; either because is free (as in libre), or because it gets the job done, or because it's faster. Customization is a completely valid reason to use Linux; it's just not the only one. The job of the Linux developers, therefore, should be to maintain that state of openness and not to constrain the user to any particular methodology. With this I strongly disagree. The job of the developers is the one they are being paid for, if they are being paid; and if not, their job is to do whatever the hell they want to. If you are an employer you have the right to *demand* a developer who is your employee whatever you want. If you are just a user (like myself), you do not have the right to *demand* anything. You can of course express your opinion, but the devs have no obligation whatsoever to even listening to it. If you don't like the direction of an open source project, you have (now and forever) the freedom to choose another project, fork the project to take it in the direction you want to (as some Gentoo devs have recently decided to do with udev), or start contributing to the project so it goes in the direction you believe is the correct one. But if you are not actually writing the code or paying someone else to do it, you don't get to tell anyone what the job of a developer is. Or more precisely, you can say it, just don't expect the developers to actually caring about what you (or I) have to say. They *could* care, of course; they are just not *obligated* to. IOW, Linux is about *choice* and not about conformity. Nobody has done anything to your freedom to choose whatever you want. Just don't expect that someone else will do the work to maintain the xf86-input-keyboard and xf86-input-mouse drivers; and don't expect the X.org developers to care about them if they believe that xf86-input-evdev is the
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On 11/17/2012 02:17 PM, Frank Peters wrote: [trim /] IMO, udev is the most twisted and unnecessary piece of cr** to have ever been foisted upon the Linux world. It is apparently the brainchild of the Freedesktop project, who are always busily creating more bloated graphical extravaganzas in some misguided mission to outdo Microsoft. I agree, mostly. It certainly has caused my grief. I refuse to jump on that garish bandwagon. I have *real* computing to accomplish. For me, the appeal of Linux is that it allows the user to configure and customize his system to suit his personal preferences, however bizarre or unconventional those may be. The job of the Linux developers, therefore, should be to maintain that state of openness and not to constrain the user to any particular methodology. IOW, Linux is about *choice* and not about conformity. I also agree with your philosophy here. I'm not so sure that it applies to your situation. The kernel is the gold standard for backwards compatibility, as Linus regularly squashes functional regressions. Freedesktop does not agree, and probably does't have the manpower anyways. They develop new features to work with current systems, and video driver developers follow their lead. My choice is simple: absolutely no udev (or any equivalent). If others desire to have it, then that is their choice, but I should never be forced to follow along. Well, you pointed out in your first mail that: My system is updated daily ^ Do you have some sort of filter on your daily updates that magically determines whether you'll like them? If you don't want to change, don't update. :-) You weren't forced to update your Xorg or nvidia drivers, after all. You chose to do so probably because you like security fixes, other bug fixes and new features. Did you even try to reinstall the older versions of any of your suspect packages? Hopefully, Gentoo has not lost this understanding and will strive to maintain the wisdom. Gentoo doesn't control the software you are b**ching about, so I don't know what you expect to happen here. Again, I applaud your philosophical position, but I *like* being able to unplug and replug keyboards and mice without worry. I'm not inclined to fork Xorg, so I've sucked it up and joined the udev/evdev world. I'll pick another hill to die on. I used to hate initramfs boot sequences, too. I was horrified when the linux raid maintainer declared that new features were only going to be supported in initramfs systems. When some disk hot-swap features I wanted pushed me that way, I didn't fork the kernel. I learned how early userspace worked and switched. Now I like it. You might find the same happens to you when you try evdev. HTH, Phil
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 23:25:13 -0600 Steven Lembark lemb...@wrkhors.com wrote: ... might not even use a CRT any more, I really should leave this alone but I just can't resist. Actually, on this machine (with the keyboard problem) I still use a CRT. The reason is that I do a lot of image processing and I need cheap color fidelity. With an LCD, high fidelity color comes with an equally high price, but equally proficient CRT monitors are far less expensive. This CRT is a HUGE monster that weighs over a hundred pounds, but for the same price I could never find an equal LCD display. It also uses VGA input. Think of it! Fortunately, simple DVI-VGA adapters are still available. The KB and mouse drivers were developed in the days of dedicated AT keyboard and mouse ports -- prior to USB with all of its switching and shared bandwidth issues. I have intended to switch to evdev, but, since things have been working effectively -- and this is a late model Core i7 based system -- I felt no pressing need. But your argument has convinced me to bring this task up a few notches in priority. Frank Peters
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
What input drivers you're using? 2012/11/14 Frank Peters frank.pet...@comcast.net Hello, Lately I have been experiencing a strange problem. Under X my USB keyboard will suddenly stop working. If I press some keys they will not appear in an X console or in any other application. There is no warning. It just will sporadically stop working. Usually, if I wait for several minutes the keys will start working again. Fortunately, the USB mouse will continue to function normally during these episodes. If I then immediately shutdown X using some mouse clicks, I will again have a working keyboard. Also, the last few keys I had pressed before shutting down X will appear in my console. This would mean that the key presses are detected and placed into the buffer but somehow the X applications do not receive them. I cannot pinpoint the start of this behavior to any specific system changes, but I suspect that the latest nvidia-drivers may be the source of the problem. The problem seems to coincide with one of the several nvidia updates, but this is still a guess. My system is updated daily and I use only the Fvwm window manager (no Gnome or K). How can I debug this further? Both the kernel log and the X log show nothing whatever. Frank Peters
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
Am 14.11.2012 20:18, schrieb Frank Peters: Hello, Lately I have been experiencing a strange problem. Under X my USB keyboard will suddenly stop working. If I press some keys they will not appear in an X console or in any other application. There is no warning. It just will sporadically stop working. Usually, if I wait for several minutes the keys will start working again. Fortunately, the USB mouse will continue to function normally during these episodes. If I then immediately shutdown X using some mouse clicks, I will again have a working keyboard. Also, the last few keys I had pressed before shutting down X will appear in my console. This would mean that the key presses are detected and placed into the buffer but somehow the X applications do not receive them. I cannot pinpoint the start of this behavior to any specific system changes, but I suspect that the latest nvidia-drivers may be the source of the problem. The problem seems to coincide with one of the several nvidia updates, but this is still a guess. My system is updated daily and I use only the Fvwm window manager (no Gnome or K). How can I debug this further? Both the kernel log and the X log show nothing whatever. Frank Peters I think you just have to bite the bullet and start swapping parts of your setup until the error disappears: Try a different keyboard, or a different USB port. Use different (older + newer) versions of xorg-server, xf86-input-evdev and so forth. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:31:50 -0200 Luis Gustavo Vilela de Oliveira luisgustavo.vil...@gmail.com wrote: What input drivers you're using? xf86-input-mouse-1.8.1 xf86-input-keyboard-1.6.2 Also, I am not using the auto configuration but I have a custom X config file. Frank Peters
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
Try use only evdev instead. Looks like is some problem with the input drive that u are using. 2012/11/14 Frank Peters frank.pet...@comcast.net On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:31:50 -0200 Luis Gustavo Vilela de Oliveira luisgustavo.vil...@gmail.com wrote: What input drivers you're using? xf86-input-mouse-1.8.1 xf86-input-keyboard-1.6.2 Also, I am not using the auto configuration but I have a custom X config file. Frank Peters
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
Frank Peters, mused, then expounded: On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 20:43:47 +0100 Florian Philipp li...@binarywings.net wrote: It's a software problem. When the keyboard stops I can immediately shut down X and it will be working. The hardware is not the fault. Rebuild your hardware drivers - keyboard, mouse, etc. Look in the xorg-server ebuild and it'll say - emerge portage-utils; qlist -I -C x11-drivers/ Then rebuild the drivers on the list, if you haven't. The other cause might be dbus. Bob -- -
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:45:27 -0500, Frank Peters frank.pet...@comcast.net wrote: For the moment, at least, my solution will be to stop and then restart X. If I may, I suggest that you try the evdev solution that some others have pointed out. The package is xf86-input-evdev, and it replaced your mouse and keyboard drivers as one unified driver. I believe it may require adjusting your xorg.conf since you have a custom one. According to [0], which admittedly did not cite a source (and I'm lazy so I didn't do much searching), the evdev driver obsoletes the keyboard and mouse driver. I seem to recall that there was a Gentoo news or something about this a while back too, saying that keyboard and mouse were obsolete, but I again am lazy and haven't even attempted to find that :) [0] http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/X.Org/Mouse -- R
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 14:18:46 -0500 Frank Peters frank.pet...@comcast.net wrote: My system is updated daily and I use only the Fvwm window manager (no Gnome or K). With a similar setup I've had no problems using evdev. The first step was to unlink xorg.conf. At that point everything Just Worked. If you want an xorg.conf then try using X -configure; as SU and see what it gives you -- after installing evdev. Q: Do you have any other USB devices on the system? There may be something else that is hogging the bus (e.g., flakey flash drive) and causing timeouts with the KB. Could also be a flakey USB port or keyboard hardware. In my experience, purely random flakeyness is more likely to be a hardware issue. In any case, I'm happily running with fvwm 2.6.3, INPUT_DEVICES=evdev, and no xorg.conf whatever. -- Steven Lembark 3646 Flora Pl Workhorse Computing St Louis, MO 63110 lemb...@wrkhors.com +1 888 359 3508
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 20:43:47 +0100 Florian Philipp li...@binarywings.net wrote: I think you just have to bite the bullet and start swapping parts of your setup until the error disappears: Try a different keyboard, or a different USB port. Use different (older + newer) versions of xorg-server, xf86-input-evdev and so forth. It's a software problem. When the keyboard stops I can immediately shut down X and it will be working. The hardware is not the fault. You are probably correct. Currently, I am rather busy with other things and can't take the time to do much software downgrades and comparisons. For the moment, at least, my solution will be to stop and then restart X. But if things do not clear up, I eventually will have to search for a way to debug or get some sort of diagnostic output. Frank Peters
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:06:54 -0500 Randy Barlow ra...@electronsweatshop.com wrote: If I may, I suggest that you try the evdev solution that some others have pointed out. Yes, I have known about evdev for a long time, but since everything has worked very well on my system I have had no motivation to change. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I can research what needs to be done to change over to using evdev. But if the legacy keyboard and mouse drivers have been made obsolete by evdev, then why are they still being distributed? Is it only to accommodate older systems? Frank Peters
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:11:12 + Steven Lembark lemb...@wrkhors.com wrote: In my experience, purely random flakeyness is more likely to be a hardware issue. In any case, I'm happily running with fvwm 2.6.3, INPUT_DEVICES=evdev, and no xorg.conf whatever. I have a spare keyboard (brand new) that I can attach. If the problem persists then I'll have to switch over to evdev -- but that won't be for a few weeks yet. Thanks for all the responses. Frank Peters
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:08:27 -0500 Frank Peters frank.pet...@comcast.net wrote: Also, I am not using the auto configuration but I have a custom X config file. Q: What do you need the custom xconfig for? You might find that life is easier if you remove the xorg.conf, switch to evdev as the input, and see what happens. If you really, really need something you can probably just handle in your .xinitrc or .Xdefaults. If neither of those will work create a barebones config with X -configure and add the minimum to it. xorg.conf behaves just like an attic: it accumulates things that noone wants to throw out becuse they might be useful. Taking the time to clean the thing out -- along with your .Xdefaults, .xinitrc, .fvwm[2]rc -- is a worthwhile part of running a machine. -- Steven Lembark 3646 Flora Pl Workhorse Computing St Louis, MO 63110 lemb...@wrkhors.com+1 888 359 3508
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 16:45:27 -0500 Frank Peters frank.pet...@comcast.net wrote: It's a software problem. When the keyboard stops I can immediately shut down X and it will be working. The hardware is not the fault. Could be that the software is getting kicked into a lockup state by flakey hardware returning invalid values. Be nice if the driver would successfully reject all bad input, but there is no guarantee that pushing white noise into it won't put it into a locked up state. And, yes, I've learned that the hard way :-) -- Steven Lembark 3646 Flora Pl Workhorse Computing St Louis, MO 63110 lemb...@wrkhors.com+1 888 359 3508
Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X
On Wed, 14 Nov 2012 19:48:38 -0500 Frank Peters frank.pet...@comcast.net wrote: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If that were true we'd be driving Model-T's; hell, we'd be walking. Since you probably run something later than a 386, might have replaced your MFM or RLL drives, might not even use a CRT any more, and probably drive something later than a Model-T, the point is that keeping up is part of managing a system. Part of that is looking at the updated modules that deal with modern hardware. The KB and mouse drivers were developed in the days of dedicated AT keyboard and mouse ports -- prior to USB with all of its switching and shared bandwidth issues. If you really, really, really want to use the old drivers then find a MB with the old hardware they were designed for and use that instead. Otherwise you will suffer far less frustration if you just keep up. -- Steven Lembark 3646 Flora Pl Workhorse Computing St Louis, MO 63110 lemb...@wrkhors.com+1 888 359 3508
