On Friday 13 Nov 2015 15:54:02 Walter Dnes wrote: > I have 3 machines kicking around. One is a Dell Inspiron 530 from > June 2008 that simply refuses to die. The others are more recent. > On my desk (actually a re-purposed kitchen table) I only have room for 1 > 24 inch monitor, 1 big Unicomp "IBM-like clickety-clack" USB keyboard > http://www.pckeyboard.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_code=UNI041 > A and 1 trackball. > > I got an IOGear 4-port USB KVM. It has a remote clicker to switch > between the 4 ports; no icky escape/control sequences. Because it's > hardware-controlled, there are no drivers required. It works great > with one exception, which is a linux kernel problem, not a switch > problem. The problem I've found occurs when booting a machine that is > not currently selected by the KVM switch. I found the BIOS settings to > eliminate the... > > Keyboard failure > Select F1 to continue; F2 to enter SETUP > > ...message. The linux kernel problem is that it doesn't detect the > display when that particular machine is not selected at bootup > (duhhhh), and assumes 1024x768 console and graphics video. If the > machine is selected by the switch at bootup, things work properly. > > But don't panic. Even if I boot into 1024x768 text mode, and default > to 1024x768 graphics, running "xrandr -s 1920x1080" gets me 1920x1080 > X Window display. The available modes for your display may be > different. Just run "xrandr" for a list of available modes.
I don't think there's a problem at all. I have a 2-port USB KVM too, but I don't have any difficulty with the keyboard. Of course I get the 80x24 screen if the monitor isn't connected to the PC at boot time. I just make sure I do have that PC selected when I boot it - or if I can't, such as after a power cut while I'm out, I just reboot it when I can. There's a kernel config option somewhere, I think, about choosing whether to read the EDID from the screen or to use a preset value, but I haven't bothered with it for the few occasions I might need it. Can your PC BIOS start in headless mode? That would sidestep the missing- keyboard problem. -- Rgds Peter
