From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0.0) Gecko/20020606 Description of problem: I've just installed 7.3 onto a brand new IBM R31 laptop, and I'm having the rather disappointing problem of being largely unable to type or use the built-in pointer. While I will generally admit that my typing skills leave something be desired, the problem here is not (entirely) my abilities. Rather, it seems IBM has done something "non-standard" with the keyboard (and "eraser" pointer) hardware so as to make the "standard" driver behave erratically. Specifically, when moving the pointer for more than one or two seconds, a sudden burst of random clicks and/or pointer motion occurs; in other words, it stops moving as I instruct it to and instead goes momentarily insane, clicking, right-clicking, and moving all over the screen. The keyboard problem is less obtrusive, but it remains a serious impediment to functional typing: Tabs are inserted randomly, keys are occasionally "dropped", enter is inserted every so often--basic reliability problems appear quite frequently. These problems disappear entirely when using an external USB keyboard and mouse. Is there an updated driver I could use, or perhaps some reverse-engineering I could do to provide information for updating the existing driver to support this hardware? Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot Linux on an IBM ThinkPad R31. :) 2. Use the keyboard or mouse at any time. Actual Results: Erratic keyboard and mouse behavior at all times. Expected Results: "Normal" keyboard and mouse behavior at all times. :) Additional info: The full model number is: IBM ThinkPad R31 2656-E4U
Not sure if anyone is looking at this (and if so, if they are interested), but the problem appears to be affected by the pointer embedded in the keyboard somehow. When I disable this little device in the BIOS, the keyboard problem gets a bit better, but does not disappear entirely. To attempt to put this in quantitative terms, I'd say that where previously one in ten keystrokes resulted in spurrious "ESC" scancodes being generated, after disabling the built-in pointer, approximately one in twenty is erroneous. (The scancodes were determined via "showkey".) Anything I can do? I REALLY don't want to install Windoze on this box, but if I literally cannot type, I will be left with no alternative. (An external keyboard is rather inconvenient when crammed into a commercial jet, a situation I find myself in at least twice per week.) Damon
This is caused by some APM incompatibility, and disappears completely when I kill the battery status monitor (battstat_applet). Resolution courtesy of IBM's online support forums. Damon
Thanks for the bug report. However, Red Hat no longer maintains this version of the product. Please upgrade to the latest version and open a new bug if the problem persists. The Fedora Legacy project (http://fedoralegacy.org/) maintains some older releases, and if you believe this bug is interesting to them, please report the problem in the bug tracker at: http://bugzilla.fedora.us/