[REGRESSION] Root zpool mounting broken between 06/30/2013 and 07/21/2013 when PS/2 support compiled into the kernel

[Bruce Evans]

On Sat, 9 Aug 2014, Garrett Cooper wrote:

> On Jul 30, 2014, at 3:51 AM, Garrett Cooper <yaneurabeya at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> …
>
>> I wish my motherboard had an RS232 port, but unfortunately it doesn’t; I don’t have 2 USB RS-232 converters either (and I’m not sure a USB serial adapter would work for boot2sio, would it?) :/.

Better only buy motherboards with RS232.  Some brands of consumer motherboards
still have 1 port as standard in most models.  Configuration may be as
difficult in the kernel as in boot2sio.

Next, try a PCI serial card.  These are still relatively easy to find
at a cost of less than a motherboard.  Motherboards with PCI slots are
becoming hard to find.  (I almost bought a Z87 one with some PCI slots.
3 months later, Z87 is mostly replaced by Z97 and the PCI slots are
mostly gone.)

Next, try a PCIe serial card.  These are not so easy to find.

>> If the legacy USB keyboard route doesn’t work out, I have a USB to PS/2 converter coming in the mail.
>>
>> It would be nice if bug 133989 was fixed. I’ll talk to hps@ about it…
>
> I just tried the USB -> PS/2 converter and it didn’t work (might be because the port is a “mouse/keyboard combo port” according to the docs). I tried kern.cam.boot_delay=30000 and the keyboard was probed before the mountroot prompt came up so I could use it; I’ll add that tip to PR 133989.

I have one that does work with the keyboard+mouse that it came with.
Apparently, doing the conversion correctly takes a lot of hardware but
incorrect conversions with less hardware sometimes work, an specialized
ones can cut the right corners.  Just having the possibility of a
useful conversion requires a PS/2 port on the motherboard.  These seem
to be about as standard as 1 serial port.  But keyboards with PS/2 are
already hard to find.

Bruce