(I'm re-posting this from my other post in Slackware-Installation {postid=726545}, since it was sort of being hidden inside a thread that was quickly solved)

I'm having a strange problem installing Slackware 9.1. I have a USB keyboard/mouse (Touchstream LP by fingerworks.com) that is not getting recognized beyond the boot stage. This keyboard works fine installing Mandrake(9.0) and Fedora Core 1.I've looked pretty much everywhere online. Most posts/articles mention disabling legacy/Bios USB support so that Slack picks up the USB devices. Some say to give the "nousb" option at the boot prompt.

I've tried these two suggestions in different combinations, but without success. Booting regularly (USB support in Bios, usb enabled for kernel) causes some kind of error when the usb module tries to load. For some reason it thinks there are no USB devices connected, and therefore "dumps" the USB module. The installer crashes (hangs?) there after spewing some sort of error message (don't remembre the contents).

The same thing also happens if I disable USB in the Bios. Because the usb keyboard will not work at boot time, i have to wait the 2 minutes for the autoboot. Once the kernel begins to boot, it is identical to the above ("normal") situation.

If I give the 'nousb' parameter at boot (either with or without USB support in the Bios), I am able to boot up to the option to select a keyboard map. Because the kernel was told not to load usb it doesn't attempt to do so, and avoids the error messages i saw previously. But becasue USB is not enabled now, there is no way I can continue with the installation!

Could there be something about the USB module that is causing issues? I've seen this same/similar problem in other posts, but most of the time it got somehow resolved by one of the above suggestions. The thing is that the keyboard is Definitely being recognized (some sort of ID query goes out to the kbd, and the device identifies itself correctly as "Touchstream {blahblah}". Then it complains that there are no USB devices present, so tries to unload the module, as I explained above...
AGH!
(I just went and ordered a PS/2 keyboard so I can install this... I suppose it's good to have anyhow..)

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated!
thanks.

What Kernel have you choosen while installing ?
bare.i or usb.i ?

I've been trying bare.i .. I didn't know there was a usb.i kernel. (I didn't see it listed in the available kernels window of the boot screen.. {F3?}) Am I correct in assuming that the usb.i kernel has USB support built into the kernel? Perhaps i'll try that.

thanks!

Just tried to give usb.i as the boot option, but didn't work. Is there a full path that I need to specify?

Unfortunately you're right as usb kernel was available on old 8.1 release.
You could try dowloading it from slack site , but even working it must require many reconfigurations.
Sorry, my suggestion was not so good
Ciao

Well, my PS/2 keyboard just arrived today, so I might as well use it. Pity I couldn't figure this out, though. Now that I think of it, it may have been because the Touchstream is an "unusual"(?) input device, although I believe it is set up to communicate like any other keyboard or mouse... oh well..

cheers.
G