Keyboard Under Linux
 

Hello everyone.

I am new to Linux (I used Bell Labs version BSD and System V many many years ago! - like 1979!!)

After a little struggle I have been able to get Linux loaded (login, run vu etc) then installed an update to X to recognize my graphics card. NOW

The system boots into Gnome and the keyboard is not recognized. Questions:

1. How do I stop it booting into Gnome so that I can look into the keyboard problem.
2. (better yet) anyone know why Gnome does not recognise the keyboard/mouse?

Thanks in advance

Clive

To stop it from starting X on login, do the following (my very according to your distro):

Note: You have to be root to acomplish the following, use the su command to login as root while logged in as another user

open the file /etc/inittab and goto the line "id:X:initdefault:" where X is a number, change this number to 3, save the file, and reboot.

If your keyboard won't allow you to get this far, then...
If your mouse works, open up the character map, its somewhere in the gnome menu. Then use it to copy and paste characters with your mouse. As for the keyboard, try typing "setup" (without quotes) in some console, there will be a keyboard option in the menu of the program when it comes up. I suggest only trying setup if you can't fix it from Gnome, and login as text. You don't need X to use the setup utility. If all else fails, you can try editing /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 (or /etc/X11/XF86Config if you don't have a "-4") directly. Hope I helped! Keep trying, and good luck!


Oh! By the way, you may want to make sure the mouse and keyboard are plugged in! That helps. ;)

Thanks for the help.

Unfortunately, I am not able to get at the file system.
Everytime I boot the machine it goes straight to the Gnome login screen and the keyboard and mouse don't work.

rather than preventing it fom starting xfree on every boot your better of changing run level on boot, to do this when your boot loader comes up enter the option "init 3" (in lilo anyways, i believe grub is the same) you'll boot to a command prompt from which run xf86config this will allow you to change your keyboad settings.