Greetings, My recent installations of Debian 4.0 Etch/stable and Lenny/testing on an "OldWorld" PowerMac, while successful and generally functional, have been plagued by a problem with progressively creeping keyboard repeat/delay rates. Within about 10 minutes of use after booting up, the keyboard rate becomes so hairtrigger sensitive that the system is effectively unusable. This problem is much worse in text-only consoles (i.e., progresses more rapidly, both in F-key VCs and in a single-user session before X starts) than in X, although both environments are affected and eventually become unusable within a short period of uptime.
When the problem first manifests in a text console, if I can manage to eke out a 'kbdrate' command (by painstaking process of striking each key juuust long enough to get 3 repeat characters, followed by an even-briefer [backspace] to remove just 2 of them, lather, rinse, repeat until the whole command is complete), this will temporarily reset the keyboard rate values to normal, but only for another 10 min. or so until the rates creep back towards unusability again. Doing the above does not affect the corresponding problem in X, but I have yet to try issuing 'kbdrate' from, say, an Xterm or Run dialog. Also, specifying Xkb delay and repeat values in my xorg.conf does not seem to affect the creeping-rate issue, either. I had already sought help for this problem (and a few more from other Debuntus) here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=15464 ...without any real resolution, ending with the suggestion to try asking here instead. Someone there offered the amusing suggestion of running a script to run 'kbdrate' every few minutes but, well, honestly... that's just too silly. :^D Not to mention mitigating the symptom without addressing the cause! Just a total WAG here, but might this have anything to do with using an ADB keyboard instead of the more common PS/2 or USB? I know there is some kind of kernel-level translation that converts ADB-generated key signals to PC keycodes the system can use directly (cf. how the 'macintosh_old' XKB layout is for old kernels that don't have this translation)... Thx & best regards! -- Tyson F Nuss mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://HTDoctor.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
