> I have an MS Natural Keyboard with a standard PS/2 plug.

Hm.

> I also tried another MS PS/2 keyboard with the same results.  The keyboard 
> will also work through the boot loader so I think that I have something 
> either incorrect in one of the boot scripts or perhaps in the kernal.

When you boot your system from "other" operating systems than the one you
have loaded on the hard drive, does the keyboard work?

You've indicated that the keyboard works in the BIOS.  If you boot from,
say, a Red Hat 7.2 installation CD, does the keyboard work during the
installation?

Also, if you have a PS/2 mouse, does it work during the Red Hat 7.2
installation (if you use the GUI installer)?

It would be very, very unusual if the Linux keyboard driver was not able to
"drive" your keyboard.  Do any of the keys work when your system is booted?
Can you hit NUMLOCK and the numlock light comes on?  What if you hit
CTRL-ALT-DEL?  Is your caps lock on?  Sometimes Linux systems will act weird
if the caps lock is on.

If you boot *cough* Windows NT/2000/XP on this system, does the keyboard
work?  (DOS/W95/W98/WMe don't count, they may/probably-will use the BIOS 
for keyboard services, since they are DOS-based).

I really don't think that the problem is your software keyboard map, nor do
I think that the problem is the Linux driver etc.  Since you've tried 2
different keyboards, I don't think the problem is the keyboard.  That only
leaves one possibility: hardware.  The keyboard controller chip is usually
an Intel 8042 on the motherboard, protected by a fuse (since there's quite
a bit of power available through the keyboard interface).  Bad keyboards may
cause the fuse to blow but if that happens your keyboard won't work at all.

You could look in the BIOS setup to see if there are any specific keyboard
settings you can set, e.g. turn off USB keyboard support, etc.  The keyboard
controller uses IRQ1, which is not used by any other device.  It would be
very unusual to have an IRQ conflict with IRQ1.  The PS/2 subsystem uses
IRQ12 but I thought that was just for the UART for the mouse, and the
keyboard still uses IRQ1.  In any case, it would be very unusual for there
to be an IRQ conflict with the keyboard.

If you have a hardware problem on your motherboard the only way to find
out is to try another motherboard and see if it works.  Do you have any
other motherboards?  Or, you could pull your hard drive and put it in
another system, boot from it, and see if the keyboard works in the other
system.

I hope this information helps in some way.

--Jim

--
Jim Ockers (ockers@ockers.net)
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