Installation Hangs

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 08:35:37PM +0400, Boris Samorodov wrote:
> Jeremy Chadwick <koitsu at FreeBSD.org> writes:
> > On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 09:57:22AM -0600, Warren Block wrote:
> >> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008, ton80 wrote:
> >>
> >>> I am trying to install FreeBSD.
> >>> During the install (actually at the beginning of the process) the system
> >>> hangs indefinitely.
> >>> When it gets to the select country screen...it is frozen.
> >>> During the boot process, as it is reading all the hardware, it finds the USB
> >>> controller OK then later it states there was an IO error and that the USB
> >>> controller is halted. I have a USB Keyboard and mouse...so I would say the
> >>> problem is here.
> >>> Is there any workaround I can use to get things going?
> >>
> >> Set "USB Legacy Support" to disabled in the BIOS.  If that isn't  
> >> available, it might work to boot with the keyboard detached.  Connect it  
> >> after the BIOS boot, at the FreeBSD bootloader prompt or maybe at the  
> >> country select screen.
> >
> > I don't see how this would solve or even affect his problem.
> >
> > As I understand it, "USB Legacy Support" is intended for operating
> > systems which do not have a USB stack available to them, thus making USB
> > keyboards/mice appear as PS/2 keyboards/mice within MS-DOS and so on.  I
> > believe the way it works is that the BIOS acts as a software translation
> > layer between the USB device and PS/2 interaction.  This translation is
> > lost the instant interrupts are re-mapped or the southbridge/USB
> > controller is initialised.
> >
> > The OP is making it past boot2/loader, the kernel and all its drivers
> > are fully loaded (including the USB stack).
> 
> Well, that may be totally correct but practice... Ex., I have an ASUS
> P5K motherboard and I can't use a USB mouse with "USB Legacy Support".
> The mouse is detected and works IFF this support is OFF.

Something tells me that if you were to enable USB Legacy Support and run
Linux or Windows, you'd have a functioning mouse.

This could simply be a BIOS bug (would not surprise me), or (more
likely) a bug in FreeBSD's initialisation of the USB chip.  FreeBSD's
USB stack is under a great amount of (justified) scrutiny as of late,
and there are efforts under CURRENT to replace the stack with a complete
brand-new written-from-the ground-up stack (patches are available).

It would be beneficial if someone with this sort of configuration oddity
could run CURRENT with the new USB stack patches applied and see if
things behave as expected.

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |