In trying to make an external USB keyboard function during the installation process, my howto suggests entering "install noapic irqpoll acpi=force" on the boot: prompt. When I do that, I get "Could not find kernel image: install" as an error message.

The keyboard works at the boot prompt, and if I just hit Enter to start the install without any options, I get scrolling pc_keyb controller jammed (0xFF) errors until finally they time out, the Select Language screen comes up, and I have no keyboard functionality at all.

What's wrong with that line of boot: options? It's a fresh-burned 3.1_r5 i386 iso.

Thanks!

Add those options to the end instead of replacing what is there. At least for some installation, there will be an option at the beginning that says something like "boot" or "linux" or "install". If you entered "rescue" instead you would boot up into the rescue system instead.

There's nothing there, no... it just says

boot:

If I leave it blank and hit enter, it starts the installer which then has the aforementioned keyboard errors.

Thanks

For USB keyboard to work - turn on LEGACY USB support in your BIOS.

Is USB keyboard support enabled in the BIOS? And you could try the 2.6 kernel, unless you need to run 2.4.

I assume that it's enabled, yes - it's a MacBook Pro (mactel). The keyboard works insofar as I can type on that boot prompt -- it's just after that that it stops working. In theory, that list of boot parameters is supposed to fix the problem. :|

How would I go about trying the 2.6 kernel?

Mac's dont have a BIOS, so ignore my last post. I've not done debian on a mac before.. but to answer your question:

at the boot screen, type:

linux26

Well, for the second time I've given up on Debian. I downloaded Xubuntu, and so far it's installed and run (for the most part) perfectly. I've got a separate Ubuntu-related issue now, but that's a question for a separate thread

Thanks for your help!