Linux 2.4.x on HP ze4145
Hello,
This particular laptop has, among other things, an Athlon XP1800 mobile processor with an ALI USB 1.1 controller, an ATI Northbridge, an ATI 320 (CAB0) videocard and a synaptics PS/2 touchpad. In the following I'll try to best describe the problem I have. (Please note that I am not a developer, although I dream about writing a driver for the oz6912 PCMCIA controller this laptop came with).
Kernel versions covered: 2.4.19 - 2.4.21pre6 patched with acpi-patch. Distribution: none (LFS 4.0). For distributions, I tried RH 7.1, 7.3 and 8.0 but all fail installing if I don't pass pci=off during installation. After reboot and stock kernel I end up with the problem below, which does not dissappear when custom compiling the kernel.
1) I compiled the kernel with usb support built-in (not as modules). Upon booting and entering the login prompt, the keyboard is blocked (i.e. I can't write anything with it). If I press the power button, the computer enters runlevel 0 (so it is not frozen) and powers off.
2) Recompile the kernel with usb as modules (usbcore and usb-ohci) and do a script in /etc/rc.d/init.d/ to load the modules at boot time. Symptoms stay as above.
3) Remove the script from /etc/rc.d/rc3.d (e.g.). Boot. Login as root. The keyboard works (yee!). Do cat /dev/mouse. Keyboard no longer works (all three LEDs light up). Reboot.
4) Do step 3 above but don't cat the mouse anymore. Instead do modprobe usbcore and modprobe usb-ohci. The keyboard is NOT blocked. Do cat /dev/mouse. The mouse works (yee). Do mount -t usbdevfs none /proc/bus/usb. The USB filesystem is initialised and the USB works beautifully (tested with a digital camera, a scanner, and currently with an Apple USB mouse and Apple USB keyboard).
Did any1 have a similar problem? I posted this message about three months ago on the linux-usb, omnibook and finally last week on linux-laptop, with no success :-( At this point I am completely out of ideas, so I'd appreciate any help.
Virgil
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