USB keyboard & plymouth

[wintonian]

I have a new USB keyboard (Logitech K750) which works fine in Fedora and is recognised by the BIOS. The problem is that I have encrypted the HDD and at the point I need to enter the password the correct driver for the keyboard has yet to be loaded by the boot sequence.

At least I assume that is the problem, as other keyboards work fine and later on during the boot sequence the keyboard suddenly comes to life. Having said that I can't find an entry in the boot log for the loading of an USB drivers/ input devices or the like that would help confirm this suspecion.

Ideas?

[PabloTwo]

Check your BIOS settings and look for USB settings, specifically, anything that relates to "Legacy Mode". Be sure Legacy Mode (may be worded somewhat differently on your system) is enabled.

[wintonian]

Thanks,

All things in the USB section are enabled, however it seems to think I have 3 keyboards, 2 mice and 1 hub plugged in, while infact I have 2 keyboards, 1 mouse and 1 hub. Perhaps that is symptomatic of something?

To clarify it works fine when using Grub and having just used a Parted Magic disk, seems to be fine when booting from CD.

Edit to add:
By the time the boot sequence (partial log) gets to "Starting Activation of DM RAID sets..." it works and mosf the stuff before then is mounting HDD's and Cryptography Setup stuff. However it also includes the kernel modules, could this be loading the driver for the keyboard? If so can we load them earlier in the sequence?

[Ahmad Samir]

Try booting the "rescue" boot entry from GRUB; this uses a kernel initramfs that's built to work with a generic system.

[wintonian]

Thanks, and yes it does solve the keyboard problem, however it creates a new one with X where it's unable to bring up the GUI.

End of Plymouth output

r help (EE) Please also check the log files at "var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information.(EE) (EE) Server terminated with error (1). closing log file.
xinit: giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server: Connection refused
xinit: server error

Xorg.1.log at the end says:

[ 5176.857] (EE)
Fatal server error:
[ 5176.857] (EE) xf86OpenConsole: VT_ACTIVATE failed: No such device or address
[ 5176.857] (EE)
[ 5176.857] (EE)
Please consult the Fedora Project support
at http://wiki.x.org
for help.
[ 5176.857] (EE) Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.1.log" for additional information.
[ 5176.857] (EE)

Suggestions?

GPU is a GTX 760.

[Ahmad Samir]

Now we need to figure out which kernel module should be included in the kernel initramfs to fix this issue. Boot the regular kernel and post the output of this command, run as root:

lsinitrd /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img | grep logitech

Also, when you installed the system, was that keyboard plugged in? did the kernel get updated at all while that keyboard was plugged in?

[wintonian]

user-001@elrond ~$ lsinitrd /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img | grep logitech
/usr/bin/lsinitrd: line 140: /boot/initramfs-3.15.10-201.fc20.x86_64.img: Permission denied
cat: /boot/initramfs-3.15.10-201.fc20.x86_64.img: Permission denied
xzcat: /boot/initramfs-3.15.10-201.fc20.x86_64.img: Permission denied
xzcat: /boot/initramfs-3.15.10-201.fc20.x86_64.img: Permission denied
xzcat: /boot/initramfs-3.15.10-201.fc20.x86_64.img: Permission denied
xzcat: /boot/initramfs-3.15.10-201.fc20.x86_64.img: Permission denied
cpio: premature end of archive
user-001@elrond ~$ sudo lsinitrd /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img | grep logitech
user-001@elrond ~$

Not particularly helpful I suspect.

The system was already in existence it is a new keyboard I have added to the system.

according to yum the last update was on the 3rd so no there hasn't been a kernel update through yum yet.

[Ahmad Samir]

OK; I think just rebuilding the initramfs for the latest kernel should fix the issue. Boot the problematic kernel as usual then as root:

dracut -f

then check the output of the lsinitrd command again (should be run as root as you found out), reboot and see if it works.

[wintonian]

user-001@elrond ~$ sudo dracut -f
[sudo] password for user-001: 
user-001@elrond ~$ sudo lsinitrd /boot/initramfs-$(uname -r).img | grep logitech
-rw-r--r--   1 root     root        25455 Aug 27 22:36 usr/lib/modules/3.15.10-201.fc20.x86_64/kernel/drivers/hid/hid-logitech-dj.ko
user-001@elrond ~$

Now going to reboot - looks promising though.


Thank you, that did indeed work. I like simple fixes and hopefully this will be one of the bits of fiddling I actually remember for next time.

Now if anyone has found something like the Logitech Solar App that works in Fedora that would be the cream that goes with the pudding so to speak.

[Ahmad Samir]

Note that any new kernel packages will include that logitech module in the initramfs as long as the keyboard is present when the initramfs is being built.

The solaar package is available in the Fedora repos, check its web page: http://pwr.github.io/Solaar/
it mentions the k750.

[wintonian]

Note that any new kernel packages will include that logitech module in the initramfs as long as the keyboard is present when the initramfs is being built.

I sort of guessed that one, though I hadn't considered the need to keep it attached.

The solaar package is available in the Fedora repos, check its web page: http://pwr.github.io/Solaar/
it mentions the k750.

Fantastic! I did see that app but Fedora wasn't listed on website, in anycase at the time I was more concearned with the plymouth/ kernel thing.

It's amazing what's available with Linux sometimes. Considering very few keyboards are solar powered, to have a replacement app for effectively one modal (yeh it does work with other stuff too but has functionality specific to the K750) by one manufacturer was somewhat unexpected.

[Ahmad Samir]

[...]

It's amazing what's available with Linux sometimes. Considering very few keyboards are solar powered, to have a replacement app for effectively one modal (yeh it does work with other stuff too but has functionality specific to the K750) by one manufacturer was somewhat unexpected.

It's all about motivation, if a developer has that particular keyboard and he's interested enough... well, devs are really geeks, for some weird reason they like to figure things out. And open-source devs like to share their code for multiple reasons.