# Install on Dell 5000E freezes

## BigBaaadBob

I'm trying to install Gentoo on a Dell Inspiron 5000E that currently runs (well) FreeBSD and Win2k.  After a random amount of time (ranging from 0 to 15 minutes) the system ceases to respond to the keyboard.  Since I'm not using any network I can't tell whether the system is still alive or not.  I am booting from a 1.4_rc4 CDROM, not using X, and the system has the A06 BIOS.  I've tried booting with "noapm" and that didn't help.  I don't see any obvious errors in the startup messages.  I don't have any USB peripherals plugged in, nor any PCMCIA or CardBUS cards.Last edited by BigBaaadBob on Tue Jun 03, 2003 12:48 am; edited 1 time in total

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## sendmail_user

I had the same problem...So once I got it booted..I started sshd and did a remote install.

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## fraenhawk

I have a gentoo server running and decided to mess around with a Dell Inspiron 5000 laptop (not a 5000e) as a side project and was running into the same problem.

I did some research... if you hit Fn-ESC (Suspend) and then unsuspend, the keyboard will be unfrozen for another 1-15 minutes again. But needless to say, I got real tired of this solution. I went and grabbed my rc3 cd and used noapic (not sure if it was necessary, but it's helped me on other PCs) and my keyboard has yet to freeze up so far during the build. 

I did try noapic under rc4 even though it's not listed as a valid choice just to test and it didn't seem to make a difference. 

So it's happily building away under rc3with no probs so far!   :Very Happy: 

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## BigBaaadBob

I've created bug #21224 on this issue.  A reply to that bug suggest booting "nousb" or disabling usb in the bios.  I'll try that.

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## skinkflex

I've only this problem when I exit X. If I'm in the console all the time,  or in X, there's no problems at all.

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## fraenhawk

As a followup to myself, just wanted to let you know that I've completely finished all stages and kernel, rebooted into Gentoo off the hard drive now and am building X and never once had the keyboard hang under rc3.

If usb being on by default is a difference between rc3 and rc4, maybe I'll try booting off the rc4 cd with nousb later on when it's done building and see if that's the problem. Otherwise I'm just happy I didn't have to deal with the keyboard hang constantly since I had an rc3 cd lying around.

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## slyph777

Just thought that I would add that I have had the *exact* same problem with rc{2,3,4} on my 5000e.  I tested it under rc3 the most, and I thought that I had it narrowed down to something with X, i.e. if I never started X, everything seemed just fine, however once I started X, it was a timebomb ranging randomly from 1 minute to 1 hour.  I just pulled my laptop out of the closet for a fresh rc4, and had the same problem on the install.  I walked away while in the initial 'emerge sync' stage and came back to a blank screen and no way to get the computer back.  Everything seems to be running fine on the machine (i.e. I can ssh in and all the procs seem to be in good order) but the machine does not respond to the touchpad or keyboard.

Just my experience.

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## BigBaaadBob

I tried the "nousb" option but no joy.  I updated the bug report.

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## cbueche

Hi,

I suspect the touchpad. Try connecting a PS2 mouse to disable the touchpad. Set the Bios so that when connecting the mouse, it disable the touchpad.

If this solves the problem, it's a known, long-standing bug with the kbd/psaux input layer.

Charles

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## BigBaaadBob

 *cbueche wrote:*   

> Try connecting a PS2 mouse to disable the touchpad. Set the Bios so that when connecting the mouse, it disable the touchpad.  If this solves the problem, it's a known, long-standing bug with the kbd/psaux input layer.

 

Does this mean that I won't be able to use the touchpad after the install?  Weird, because some of the previous posters didn't mention that.

FWIW, I tried a USB mouse and it didn't affect the problem.  I also tried a combination of nousb and nohotplug and that made the problem less frequent.

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## slyph777

 *cbueche wrote:*   

> 
> 
> If this solves the problem, it's a known, long-standing bug with the kbd/psaux input layer.
> 
> Charles

 

Is this gentoo specific?

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## DoktorSeven

Well, I've seen the problem in every distro of Linux I've put on mine, but the keyboard lockup seems to be more random.  Sometimes it will run for days without a lockup, sometimes it locks right after booting, and anywhere inbetween these extremes.  

I haven't tried disabling USB though... I'll see what happens when I do that.

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## slyph777

 *cbueche wrote:*   

> I suspect the touchpad. Try connecting a PS2 mouse to disable the touchpad. Set the Bios so that when connecting the mouse, it disable the touchpad.
> 
> 

 

Well, actually completed an install like you mentioned ... PS2 mouse connected to the port and BIOS settings on the touchpad to "Disable when mouse present", and everything seems to be going strong.  The big test for me is to actually install X and get it up and running.  Don't know how much use I will get out of it if I have to have the mouse plugged in, however. 

Anyone know any more about this sort of bug?

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## BigBaaadBob

Aha!  It truly is a problem with the touchpad.  I can absolutely repeatedly cause the hang by sliding my finger on the touchpad.  (The randomness of the problem, I surmise, comes from one's finger just glancing over the touchpad while typing.)  This happens nomatter what I set the BIOS to with or without my USB mouse connected.  Unfortunately I don't have a PS/2 mouse anymore.

So the question remains, will the touchpad ever work on this laptop in Gentoo?  Seems a shame because it works fine under W2K and FreeBSD.  I wonder if it is just a kernel config issue...

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## wilburpan

I have Gentoo on a 5000e running without any problems.  I use gentoo-sources-2.4.20 and mm-sources-2.5.69-r8 interchangeably, but recently I've been spending more time in 2.5.69.  2.5.70 has not cooperated so far.

It's my work laptop -- which is, of course, at work.  I'd be willing to post kernel configs, XFree86 config files, etc. tomorrow, if anyone's interested.

If there's anything weird that I've noticed about the keyboard, it's that it seems that characters get dropped every so often while typing, but it just as well might be the crappy keyboard itself or my crappy typing skills.  :Embarassed: 

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## cbueche

Hi,

to avoid the issue in X when you have no PS2 mouse connected, you need to handle the touchpad events. If you don't do it, it hangs. You can handle the events by defining an InputDevice for the touchpad :

```
Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier  "Touchpad"

    Driver      "mouse"

    Option "Protocol"    "PS/2"

    Option "Device"      "/dev/psaux"

    Option "Emulate3Buttons" "on" 

EndSection
```

The USB mouse device is there as well :

```
Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier  "LogitechUSBMouse"

    Driver      "mouse"

    Option "Protocol"    "IMPS/2"

    Option "Device"      "/dev/input/mice"

    Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

EndSection
```

then, in the server layout :

```
Section "ServerLayout"

    Identifier "layout1"

    Screen     "screen1"

    InputDevice "Touchpad" "CorePointer"

    InputDevice "LogitechUSBMouse" "SendCoreEvents"

    InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"

EndSection
```

This way, I have both devices (USB mouse and touchpad) working, and if I'm without USB mouse (eg laptop on my knees in the train), I can work with the touchpad.

Regarding the lost keyboard events : I initialy suspected my aging keyboard, but after being replaced by Dell (due to a mechanical problem with the space key), I still have the problem. I suspect a long-standing bug, either in the kernel or in the laptop hardware/firmware. This laptop will be replaced soon, probably with the new 8500. Just waiting for multi-standard DVD writers. Dell CH vendor said July.

Hope this help.

Charles

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## wilburpan

Here's my XF86Config file, mostly decommented.  It looks to be a very similar setup to Charles'.

```
# Input devices

Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier   "Keyboard1"

    Driver   "Keyboard"

    Option "AutoRepeat" "500 30"

    Option "XkbRules"   "xfree86"

    Option "XkbModel"   "pc101"

    Option "XkbLayout"   "us"

EndSection

# Core Pointer's InputDevice section

Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier  "Mouse [touchpad]"

    Driver      "mouse"

    Option      "Protocol"    "Auto"

    Option      "Device"      "/dev/mouse"

    Option      "Emulate3Buttons" "on"

    Option      "Name" "Autodetection"

EndSection

Section "InputDevice"

    Identifier  "Mouse [USB]"

    Driver      "mouse"

    Option      "Device"        "/dev/input/mice"

    Option      "Name" "Autodetection"

    Option      "Protocol" "IMPS/2"

    Option      "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"

    Option      "ChordMiddle"

EndSection

# ServerLayout sections.

Section "ServerLayout"

    Identifier  "Simple Layout"

    Screen "Screen 1"

    InputDevice "Mouse [touchpad]" "CorePointer"

    InputDevice "Keyboard1" "CoreKeyboard"

    InputDevice "Mouse [USB]" "SendCoreEvents"
```

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## slyph777

 *cbueche wrote:*   

> 
> 
> to avoid the issue in X when you have no PS2 mouse connected, you need to handle the touchpad events. If you don't do it, it hangs. You can handle the events by defining an InputDevice for the touchpad :
> 
> 

 

Thanks! I guess I will install the laptop with the PS2 mouse plugged in up to and including X, configure X correctly, and then reboot and change the bios settings back to "normal". 

Any idea why this sort of thing happens on install?

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## cbueche

for me, the problem is not only during install, it's present since about 2 years. I guess some kernel changes in the kbd layer is the root cause, but I never traced it back, my understanding of that kind of things is rather limited :-/

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## BigBaaadBob

The X11 configurations above are nice, but I have two questions:

* I understand how this would  affect the response of the touchpad when X is running, but I don't understand how this would affect the hangs when X isn't running, like in the livecd setups.

* Is there any way to disable the touchpad automatically when a USB mouse is attached, and automatically re-enable  the touchpad when the USB mouse is removed?

The latter is because my thumbs sometimes touch the pad when I'm typing and I suddenly find myself typing in another window, which is why I use the USB mouse most of the time.

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## cbueche

You're right, when X doesn't run, the problem can arise if you touch the pad. I once experimented with a tool named tpconfig from synaptics that allowed to configure the touchpad (it was before going the gentoo way). It's even in gentoo, but masked (app-misc/tpconfig). I had not much success with it, for reason I forgot, I gave up playing with it.

Now that suspend to ram works, I never shutdown my laptop so I almost never goto console mode.

BTW : if the lock happen when you are in the console mode, suspend to ram and resume flush the problem. Not nice, but...

If someone manages to create a tpconfig setup that works and can describe it, that would be nice.

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## wilburpan

 *BigBadBob wrote:*   

>  I understand how this would affect the response of the touchpad when X is running, but I don't understand how this would affect the hangs when X isn't running, like in the livecd setups.

 

Hmmm.   I don't remember having this problem in Gentoo.  It was a problem back when I was using Mandrake, but not now.

I did try booting up with a Gentoo LiveCD to see what would happen.  Using the 1.4_rc3 stage 1 LiveCD I don't have any problems with keyboard/touchpad lockup.  I tried typing and pounding on the trackpad at the same time just to be sure, and tried booting the LiveCD with and without my USB mouse plugged in.

Looking in my BIOS, the internal touchpad is set to Autodisabled.  Maybe that will help.  You could also check the Linux on Laptops website for other people's 5000e setups.

Finally, I can post my kernel config if you think that might help.  But given your problem persists with both your Gentoo setup and when ooting from the LiveCD, I don't think that's the issue.

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