I've got some gaming joysticks that connect through the keyboard's PS/2 slot on my computer. However, my actual keyboard connects through a USB port. For whatever reason, Linux doesn't detect the game controllers on the PS/2 port. However if I unplug one of them (the connectors daisy-chain, the instructions included said not to plug in more than 2 devices since PS/2 doesn't have that much power) and plug a PS/2 keyboard in, and type a letter, the keyboard and other joystick work fine. Taking out the keyboard and plugging joystick 2 makes everything work as intended.

Also interesting, the joysticks work fine in LILO..

Anyhow, I need to force the OS to use devices from the PS/2 keyboard port but I'm not quite sure how to go about this. Any suggestions? Using Slackware 10 in case it matters...


relevant dmesg:
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
input: ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse on isa0060/serio1
serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
...
input: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [CHESEN USB Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:02.0-1
input: USB HID v1.10 Device [CHESEN USB Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:02.0-1


"cat /proc/bus/input/devices" :
N: Name="ImExPS/2 Generic Explorer Mouse"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio1/input0
H: Handlers=mouse0
B: EV=7
B: KEY=1f0000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
B: REL=103

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=0a81 Product=0101 Version=0110
N: Name="CHESEN USB Keyboard"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:02.0-1/input0
H: Handlers=kbd
B: EV=12000b
B: KEY=10000 7 ff87207a c14057ff febeffdf ffefffff ffffffff fffffffe
B: ABS=100 0
B: LED=1f07

I: Bus=0003 Vendor=0a81 Product=0101 Version=0110
N: Name="CHESEN USB Keyboard"
P: Phys=usb-0000:00:02.0-1/input1
H: Handlers=kbd
B: EV=10000b
B: KEY=1f0000 20000 3878 d801d101 1e0000 0 0 0
B: ABS=100 0

I: Bus=0011 Vendor=0001 Product=0001 Version=ab41
N: Name="AT Translated Set 2 keyboard"
P: Phys=isa0060/serio0/input0
H: Handlers=kbd
B: EV=120003
B: KEY=4 2000000 3802078 f840d001 f2ffffdf ffefffff ffffffff fffffffe
B: LED=7
(only *after* plugging/unplugging the PS2 kbd)

Its better to use keyboards and mice from the PS/2. It is a misconception that USB speeds up keyboard and mice tolling. The reliablity of a PS/2 connector is by far most superior than USB. You can use the joystick on USB using a PS/2 to USB converter.

If you insist on using USB for keyboards and mice, you have to load up hid or usbhid, usbmouse, usbkbd. You may have to put these in the ramdisk file which is /boot/initrd.gz. You can either run mkinitrd using the with option or use gzip to decompress it. If you do decompress initrd.gz, you have to mount it, copy the modules, and edit the load_modules (I think) script. The modules have to be decompress for them to be used or else it will not work.

You can use an optocoupler connected to the power lines of the PS/2 to switch a high current transistor or mosfet with heatsink that switches on external power supply. The optocoupler should bridge two PCB boards and be at least 5KV or more for good isolation.

Thanks for the suggestion, however I don't see that it really addresses my problem. I use the keyboard through USB because that's the only connector that came with it. And it works perfectly fine as is, it's just the joysticks that have this problem... My mouse is PS/2 btw.

Presumably I could get a USB>PS/2 adaptor for the keyboard and a PS/2>USB adaptor for the joysticks, but this seems a bit redundant, no? Though I suppose it would be a better solution than keeping a spare PS/2 keyboard around.

I know there's a keyboard-type device at isa0060/serio0/input0, I just need a way to force Linux to accept input from that device without plugging a real keyboard in there. Obviously some signal is being sent when I plug the actual keyboard in there, but where is it going and what's listening for it?