USB keyboard not recognized at bootup

[Bart Silverstrim]

Oscar Chavarria wrote:
> On 8/3/07, Bart Silverstrim <bsilver at chrononomicon.com> wrote:
>> Oscar Chavarria wrote:
>>> I have a GENERIC kernel. The /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/GENERIC file
>> contains
>>> the following under the USB Support section (among other devices):
>>>
>>> device          usb             #USB Bus (required)
>>> device          uhid            #"Human Interface Devices"
>>> device          ukbd           #Keyboard
>>>
>>> Nevertheless, the keyboard is useless, not recognized until FreeBSD
>> takes
>>> control, for example to choose the type of bootup: safe, single user,
>>> reboot, etc.
>>>
>>> Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
>> How old is the computer?  Does the BIOS support USB devices...?  You may
>> need a BIOS update, or the system you have just doesn't support USB at
>> bootup...
>>
> 
> 
> It's quite new, less than a year (Pentium IV, VIA motherboard) and it does
> support USB. As a matter of fact, the keybr does work after bootup. I also
> mounted a USB HDD on /usr/home with no problem.

Ah.  Some motherboards support USB but need to have the OS support them, 
hence the reason that things would work after bootup and initialization 
is complete.  Other systems have built-in handler code in the BIOS so 
that you can use USB-based toys for things like booting from USB 
thumbdrives or USB keyboards to configure BIOS settings.

If your system is the former, it would explain why you see things 
working after the OS takes over (much like some hard disks not being 
seen correctly until Linux bypasses BIOS code) and you may need an 
update to the BIOS.  If the latter, then I don't know why your system 
isn't seeing USB toys until after the OS drivers take over.

-Bart