Hi

I'm kind of a linux newbie.

I have recently installed SuSE 9.2 Professional on my Dell Dimension 3100 - a machine which (bizarrely) only has USB ports, no PS/2 keybooard/mouse ports. Anyway, it would seem SuSE doesn't recognise the mouse or keyboard, so as soon as I select the SuSE partition on bootup...I have to do a cold restart because my input devices are dead.

Does anyone know where I can get USB drivers for SuSE 9.2 and how I can install them?

Thanks for any help!

Is your computer a laptop or desktop? How have you set your BIOS?
Do you have windows or just SuSE10.2? Are you saying that if you try to access SuSE10.2 from windows it doesn't work but a cold reboot and selection of SuSE10.2 does?
What is the output of dmesg from a linux konsole?

Yeah, I have a partition - WinXP and SuSE. The USB mouse/keyboard won't work with SuSE, period. The funny thing is when I boot up (or restart) the keyboard and mouse work, then I get to the SuSE partition screen which allows you to choose between windows/suse/suse safe mode....etc. At this point the mouse/keyboard are both working. If you choose Windows, it's fine - if you choose suse, suse loads up but the mouse and keyboard stop working. I checked the bios and the USB drivers boot up automatically. I'm using suse 9.2. How do I generate a dmesg if I have no input devices in linux? Is there any way I can access the linux partition from windows?

Edit: It's a desktop. I had no problem running suse on my old machine, which had PS/2 keyboard/mouse ports, it's only now because of Dell's silly decision to remove them from their new models.

2nd Edit: it appears when I boot from CDROM drive, the keyboard and mouse are fine - I can run yast from cdrom, and can also boot to recovery mode where i get a cmd line. however, I'm not sure which config to check when i'm in cmd line...

Thanks for clarifying the problem you were having.

I have used an optical USB mouse on SuSE 10 OSS and a Dell D505 laptop which also has no PS/2 ports and had no problems. When I used 9.2 I used it with PS/2 ports and USB ports ok on Dell GX150 desktop.

I have also used a USB to PS/2 converter plug to enable me to use my Microsoft keyboard which is PS/2 on the Dell D505 laptop. What make and model is the Dell you are using?

If the hardware works on Windows XP but freezes on SuSE the problem appears to be software not the BIOS or hardware. The only thing I can suggest is try say 10.2 or 10.0 and see how it goes. I have had problems with upgrade from 10 to 10.2 with the video and mouse configurations for some reason. Both PS/2 and Alps Glide drivers are loaded. But you have a desktop. It may help to boot with CD and type 'dmesg' in konsole to see kernel hardware messages.

I believe the problem is in:

1. xorg.conf which can be configured using SaX2 from the command
line or using a text editor such as vi or nano to edit the /etc/xorg.conf file. Create a backup copy first! And make sure you have intimate details of your hardware on hand.

2. There may be a problem wth the kernel configuration, I don't think this is the case.

3. There may be a problem with allocation of IRQ's etc but this is unlikely. It may help to disable any devices and COM ports you are not using in the BIOS to free up ports and IRQs, also check PS/2 are disabled.

Cool, thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, all the clues seem to suggest it's software (drivers), not BIOS or anything else. I did think of trying with 10.2 but I also didn't want to go and buy 10.2 and find it doesn't fix the issue - then again if I buy 10.2 then I'll be eligible for support from novell, so that might be a good path.

The PC model is the Dimension 3100. God knows why Dell decided to abandon PS/2 ports - doesn't make any sense to me...

Slight correction the xorg.conf file is in /etc/X11/. You may be able to buy a CD /DVD set provided as a courtesy by some ISPs at sites like the dreaded ebay, and priced to cover the cost of production and postage only. ~ A$10. Then you can try before you buy. I had no problem with the full release of Open source SuSE10, however 10.2 is not good on Dell D505 laptop, have problems of mouse and video drivers and Dell D505 is not listed as a vendor in YaST setup.

SuSE does have a reputation for handling hardware fairly well compared to some other distros, so may be best to stick with it initially.