I am using Linux-Mandrake 6.5 and everything seems to work fine until it gets to the KDE login then I can't use the mouse and keyboard. The keyboard works fine upto that point but then once it gets to the login the cursor just sits there blinking and not even the num/scroll/caps-lock light will come on. Any idea as to what is going on here? Oh an I am new to the whole linux world, I just recently transfered from windows 98 <shudder>, or, at least am trying to.

I know, you probably need more info, but i don't know what that would be or how to get it so... yeah, please be specific with instructions on what info you need and how to get it.

are those USB units?

why such an old distro?

The mouse is on a serial port and the keyboard is a 5 pin DIN Plug

Its such an old distro because that is the one I happened to get my hands on.

hmm. Anyone here who remember things from the last centry. I haven't used a ball mouse in years. Serial mouses, what's that? (kidding...)

But i seriously doubt anyone around here would remember stuff from those days. I might be wrong though.

If you could at least get a fresher distro.... It probably wouldn't work on your agent computer though. ( sorry for harrasing you, I bet it's just as good as when it was new.)

Is this an old computer you're testing linux on. In that case I would recommend putting its disk in your new computer to test. If you remove the other disk you would be perfectly sure you wouldn't destroy your windows install.

PS: If neither the mouse nor the keyboard work. How do you know the system isn't completely stalled? Are there som animations playing on the screen?

I know that the computer is not completely frozen because the cursor in the username box is blinking.

The computer I am putting it on is probably about 6-7 years old. We did try a more up-to-date distro but I believe there was a "kernel panic" message at some point. So, I am hoping to get this one working and take it from there.

have you tried singleuser mode. I would guess you have lilo on such an old distribution, so i wouldn't know how to. But you should be able to find it on the internet somwhere.

Thank you, i tried the single user mode ( "linux single" at the lilo prompt if anybody wants to know) and changed my settings for my mouse and it worked! yay! thanks for the help guys, i guess something was set up just a bit wrong and caused both to freeze.

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