Keyboard problem in X
 

I just installed the current testing version of Debian (its called Sarge, right?). I used debian-installer, and everything seemed to go smoothly. At the end of the install, it gave me a text-based login prompt. I logged in fine, but when I tried 'startx' is said that startx did not exist. I guessed this meant that X was not installed. So I did 'apt-get install x-window-system'. It downloaded it and ran the setup program. However, I noticed two problems:

(1) The big problem is, after I got X configured and did 'startx', the keyboard no longer worked. At all. (It works fine at the command prompt).

(2) The second (minor) problem is the loading time. On Mandrake (the distro I used previously) X was on screen and ready to go about 2 seconds after I typed 'startx'. Now it takes more like 20 seconds. Is there any way to speed it up?

Thanks for any help you can give. One last question. X now starts as soon the linux is finished booting. I personally prefer the text based login prompt. Is there any way to stop X from starting automatically?

Reconfigure X with /usr/X11R6/bin/xf86config and try choosing a different keyboard type.

Is there massive disk activity during those 20 seconds? Check the output of /var/log/xfree86.log
or whatever log that contains your X server messages.

Do you mean you wan't for X to not start at all during bootup or you want it to startup and then switch to the console login. If you want the first, then just goto /etc/rc5.d (I think, or whatever the default run level is) and delete the symlinks to whatever window manager you're using or just edit the script that those links point to so that they do nothing.

OK, I tried xf86config. The only thing I see about keyboards is the following:

From /var/log/xdm.log

I am not exactly sure what would be "massive disk activity" (I am not sure how much disk activity should be going on. The only warning I saw that caught me eye in the XFree86.0.log was this:

I don't know if this has anything to do with anything, though. Also, I belive the way I was doing it in Mandrake was to have the default runlevel at 3. How do I set the default runlevel?? Thx!

What happens when you continue? Can you choose a different keyboard than the current one?

When I push enter to continue, it goes on to the moniter setup screen.

That's weird. Usually, you're first asked to configure the mouse, then the keyboard. Do you have all the X client libraries installed? see the dependencies to xlibs on packages.debian.org. Do you see any errors in the log files like I told you to?

Sorry, I don't think I made myself clear. Yes, it does ask to configure the mouse, etc. Here is what happens:

1. It configures the mouse
2. It displays error about XKB keymap
3. It goes on to configure the monitor
4. Configures video card
5. Saves config file

So the problem is, after it displays the error about the keymap, it does not give me a chance to configure the keyboard.

I did find out something. 'startx' was reading /etc/X11/XFree86Config-4 but I was saving the config file to /etc/X11/XF86Config so my changes were not having an effect. Having corrected that, 'startx' is giving me an error about /dev/mouse not being found. How can I determine where my mouse is found (it is a PS/2 mouse)?

Also, I edited my post above before I saw your most recent posts. I wrote what I saw in the logs.

Try reinstalling xlibs (if you have a online connection and apt set up, do a "apt-get install xlibs") or reinstalling everything related to X since you don't have that file /something/xkb/xfree86

As for the mouse, go to the /dev directory. To see if /dev/psaux is your mouse device, do "cat psaux"; when you move your mouse around, you should see random characters on the screen. If psaux is your mouse, then make a symbolic link for it ("ln -s psaux mouse").

K, thx. I found the mouse. I'll try reinstalling all of X tomorrow. Can you give me a list of about what all that includes. Thanks so much 4 your help!

I don't think you should completely reinstall X before you've made sure that xlibs is installed by using "dpkg -l xlibs". If it's not installed then just do apt-get install xlibs (just like you did with x-window-system).

OK, after installing xlibs and using xf86config to choose the correct keyboard, X is working fine. This also seems to have fixed the slow startup problem. Thx!