Linux boot problem keyboard freeze ze4145

[Ravishankar Rao_1]

Hi
I installed Mandrake Linux 9.0 on my ze4145. I am having problems with the keyboard.

Firstly, I cannot type the letter s at the boot prompt or in grub. The same problem happens with Red Hat Linux 8.0. I tried attaching a PS/2 keyboard, and still the same. I can type s once I boot into Linux or Windows though. Has anyone of you faced this?

The problem is that I did not cleanly shutdown linux, and now every time I boot, Mandrake checks the filesystem and asks me to run fsck and press Y/N. Then, the keyboard freezes, attached PS/2 keyboard also freezes, and I can't proceed.

Is there a way to bypass the filesystem check/fsck by specifying a boot option (preferably an option without the letter s in it)? I wanted to use the rescue disk, but I can't type the s in rescue. Please help.

Also, I've used ext2 for Mandrake Linux 9. Is that a problem - should we use ext3?

-Ravi

[Balaji N]

hi
i am not sure about this "s" problem. i would suggest you to boot from a CD and then try running fsck on all the partitions.

once you are through, use tune2fs to convert your ext2 filesystems to ext3.
dont forget to update ur /etc/fstab file after that.

hope that helps.
-balaji

[Bruce Copeland]

Lots of HP notebook users seem to have keyboard freeze problems in Linux. There doesn't appear to be any really clear pattern why. I didn't have any problems on my built-to-order ze4100, but there are instances where two different people will own the same model, and only one person will have problems. Try various combinations of the boot parameters nousb, nopcmcia, or idebus=50. One of these may help. Also you might want to see if there is a newer bios available for your ze4145.

Bruce

[Ravishankar Rao_1]

I earlier couldn't boot from CD (because i couldn't type rescue) or type the option idebus or nousb. But I figured pressing Alt-SysRq-R fixes the s problem, I can now type s. But the resuce disk console again causes a keyboard freeze.

What I then did is I kept pressing the keyboard as soon as Linux began booting and somehow the keyboard didn't hang, and I could run fsck.

Now, the only problem is that while shutting down, Linux is unable to unmount something called netfs. I tried removing the entry from /etc/rc.d/rc6.d, but it still gives lots of error messages during shutdown, though it no longer reports an unclean unmount.

Thanks for your suggestions. I have the idebus option in lilo.conf now. Any idea where I can get BIOS upgrades for the ze4145?

-Ravi

[Bruce Copeland]

> Any idea where I can get BIOS upgrades for the ze4145?

Try http://h20004.www2.hp.com/soar_rnotes/bsdmatrix/matrix214345en_US.html#BIOS

This may or may not be applicable to your hardware. Also you may need Windows to be able to use the bios file that HP provides.

Bruce

[Ravishankar Rao_1]

Thanks a lot Bruce