Potential Easy Question

sunmicroman · 09-07-2005, 08:56 PM

This one has been an annoyance ever since I got my new laptop last year. I have been running a Linux distro off and on since 2000 so I am somewhat familiar with the OS. I am fairly new to Slack though. The problem I have is with any Linux distro on my laptop (I have not seen the symptom on a standard desktop with Linux) is sometimes I will press an alpha key on the keyboard and it does this:

IE: "a" key is pressed once and I get "aaaaaaaaaaa" until I press another key.

What is causing this?

Simon Bridge · 09-07-2005, 09:09 PM

I've seen this before - first time was with Sinclair ZX82 - next with TRS80 - keyboard was wearing out in all cases.

You'll notice laptop kbds are mechanically and electronically different from desktop kbds.

Turning off the autorepeat may work around this.

Does this happen on new laptops?

sunmicroman · 09-07-2005, 09:12 PM

This laptop is only about 1.5 years old. And it doesn't do this in Windows so I felt it was a Linux config problem.

raska · 09-08-2005, 10:41 AM

About one year ago, I used Slackware 10.0 on an IBM Thinkpad a21m, which model is now about 4 or 5 years old; I have never had this problem anyhow.

Actually, I own an HP pavilion zv5200 with a compiled kernel 2.6.12.5 and works like a charm.

A friend of mine used Slackware 9.0 and 10.0 on a Toshiba Satellite (something Celeron eeek) and another friend of mine uses Slackware 10 on a Sony Vaio, and we have never had this problem

I think the problem shall be your keyboard

Don't know for sure.
Good luck

Peace.