Today in an idle moment i got out this gateway USB-only box that i had lying around, and thought i'd install mandrake 8.2 on it. Everything went normally, i put the CD in, booted up, pressed enter to begin the install, performed everything with the GUI installer and the mouse, then when it came time to enter the root password I found the keyboard no longer working. So I restarted the installer and switched to the kernel message console and find a bunch of "usb_hub_port_status failed" and related messages happening as it sets itself up - ah, that'd explain it then.
A quick google for that error seems to indicate it's a known kernel problem (no specific mention of mdk though) and there are patches, but short of making up some sort of custom boot floppy with patches I don't know what to try next... Apart from hiking out to Five Dock tomorrow and getting mdk9, or maybe I feel like trying a different distro altogether (i have these moods :-)
erm, so the question is, is there an easy way round this one?
cheers, ..S.
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