USB keyboard on 3.0 hub at boot

[David Christensen]

On 2020-03-24 16:34, Russell L. Carter wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> I have a "Cooler Master Technology Inc. MasterKeys S" plugged into a
> recent Anker USB 3 hub.  On boot, it is not active at the loader
> prompt, and even after fully booting up, I have to pull the plug, wait
> a few seconds, and then plug it back in to activate the keyboard for
> eg the xdm screen.
> 
> I've been spending some time in man syscons(4), vt(4), atkbd(4),
> ukbd(4), uhci(4), and ohci(4), and I do not understand:
> 
> 1) if it's possible to have an active USB keyboard connected to a
>     USB-3 hub at the loader prompt
> 
> 2) why my USB keyboard doesn't work even after the system is fully
>     booted up, and has to be unplugged/plugged in again to activate.
> 
> I have sc, vt, atkbd, atkbdc, ukbd, ohci, uhci, and xhci configured in
> the kernel, and /boot/loader.conf contains:
> 
> hw.vga.textmode="1"
> zfs_load="YES"
> ukbd_load="YES"
> autofs_load="YES"
> # man sound(4) EQ section:
> hint.pcm.0.eq="1"
> uhid_load="YES"
> 
> These settings were originally worked out maybe 6 years ago and some
> might be obsolete.
> 
> Thanks,
> Russell

I find that USB 3.0 still is not reliable on FreeBSD and GNU/Linux. 
Surprisingly, the same can be said for PS/2 ports on newer hardware. 
So, I use USB 2.0 ports for keyboards, mice, and bootable USB drives.


I do not know the details of the settings you have made in 
/boot/loader.conf.  If you have an original copy from when the system 
was installed, you might want to try reverting any changes you have made.


David