Keyboard error IBM xSeries 335

Doug White dwhite at gumbysoft.com
Mon Jun 7 05:35:38 GMT 2004


On Fri, 4 Jun 2004, D. Pageau wrote:

> Keyboard error on IBM xSeries 335 with Freebsd 5.2.1 but work fine with
> 4.10.
>
> The keyboard work well in installation process (floppy install), then I
> reboot.  Keyboard work fine at the boot manager but died as soon FreeBSD
> is booted.
>
> The hardware is IBM xSeries 335.  I can confirm that problem with both
> 5.1 and 5.2.1.  The keyboard work flawlessly under Freebsd 4.10 and
> OpenBSD 3.5.

I've confirmed this as well on our equipment. From my analysis its a bad
assumption on the part of the DSDT; it enables the LPC bus when the floppy
device is initialized, but FreeBSD doesn't init the floppy until late in
the boot process -- after the keyboard is probed and fails. Windows probes
the floppy very early on, so it gets away with it there.

Fixing it involves some hefty reengineering of the DSDT or the FreeBSD
ACPI code to have a preference for certain devices when doing ACPI tree
walks.  Without the chipset manuals, it may very well be impossible to put
together a 3rd party fix.

If you want your local keyboard, you'll have to disable ACPI.  The machine
works without it, although it disables hyperthreading as well.

I'd also complain to your IBM rep, although they're sure to give you a
quizzical stare.  I tried to complain about this and got nothing back. We
ended up buying other hardware.

-- 
Doug White                    |  FreeBSD: The Power to Serve
dwhite at gumbysoft.com          |  www.FreeBSD.org


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