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ronch
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Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 8:01 am

So after staying away from Linux for a while because of less than stellar experiences I thought I'd give it a shot again so I got the 18.04 .iso, burned it to DVD and booted off of it for a test drive. First thing, the mouse is completely dead. Then I realize, so is the keyboard. I pressed the computer's power button and it said it'll shut down after 60 seconds, which it tried to do by ejecting the DVD and telling me to press Enter, but of course I can't do that. Both input devices are nothing special that need special drivers and both are plugged into USB 2.0 ports on the rear port cluster.

So that's that. Any thoughts?
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 8:21 am

ronch wrote:
So after staying away from Linux for a while because of less than stellar experiences I thought I'd give it a shot again so I got the 18.04 .iso, burned it to DVD and booted off of it for a test drive. First thing, the mouse is completely dead. Then I realize, so is the keyboard. I pressed the computer's power button and it said it'll shut down after 60 seconds, which it tried to do by ejecting the DVD and telling me to press Enter, but of course I can't do that. Both input devices are nothing special that need special drivers and both are plugged into USB 2.0 ports on the rear port cluster.

So that's that. Any thoughts?


Never seen that happen before, and I've 18.04 with VirtualBox, vmWare Player, AMD E-350, Various Intel machines from Apollo lake Atoms, Core 2s to Core i7s. Are you UEFI booting or Legacy (I've used it with both of those too)?

Have you another system you can try this on? Are the keyboard and mouse going through a hub (maybe reconnect them, it should pick them up). I would have thought JBI would have tried this with similar hardware to you (Pile Driver era stuff I think?).

In my experience, if I'm going to have USB issues, it's going to be with Windows so odd that it's not working for you.
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notfred
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 8:28 am

That's really weird, definitely sounds like USB issues somewhere, but there shouldn't be a problem with that. Have you tried unplugging all other USB devices? Any chance you have a PS/2 keyboard somewhere and your motherboard has a PS/2 connector? You are going to need some form of connectivity to debug, unfortunately I think the standard image doesn't come with ssh server enabled otherwise you could remote login that way to debug.
 
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 9:10 am

I had a similar issue on a Windows machine and the "fix" was to unplug the computer for about ten minutes and then plug it back in again. I honestly don't know why that worked but it did - my working theory is that it pissed off the gremlins that were causing the issue. But the machine worked normally after that. Easy enough to try.
 
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:21 am

Yes my last two Linux desktop builds have both been Piledriver-based AMD. Aside from Asmedia USB issues, they've been very stable.

Are you POSITIVE you aren't plugged into 3rd party (Asmedia) USB 3.0 ports? Many AM3+ motherboards used an Asmedia chip to provide USB 3.0 connectivity; they are horrible under Linux, and will lead to endless grief. You REALLY need to be plugged into ports that are connected directly to the southbridge.

The other thing to do is check your BIOS for any settings related to legacy or PS/2 keyboard/mouse emulation. If you find such a setting, try toggling it to whatever it isn't set to currently.
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ronch
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:58 am

Thanks for the replies, folks. I have them plugged directly into USB 2.0 ports at the back of the PC, no hub. And the motherboard doesn't have Asmedia. The USB 3.0 ports feed into a VIA controller but those aren't what the KB and mouse are connected to. I know because I've had this board for 5 years now. I don't have a spare PS/2 keyboard either; haven't had those in a while. Maybe I'll need to fiddle with some USB settings in the BIOS but I doubt a popular Linux distro would be stumped by some USB BIOS setting so easily.
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vishalsuvagia
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 1:59 pm

The first try was with a DVD, it will take its own time to load required kernel / drivers / app which may take some time before the system may be responsive / usable.
By any chance have you tried creating a bootable usb thumb drive for the Ubuntu-18.04 iso.
If you want to there are no-cost utilities available to get the usb bootable, it might be way quicker to boot compared to the DVD and you might also be able to get hold of issues.
For the first try do disconnect the rust spinners which might get the system boot quickly.
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:15 pm

vishalsuvagia wrote:
The first try was with a DVD, it will take its own time to load required kernel / drivers / app which may take some time before the system may be responsive / usable.
By any chance have you tried creating a bootable usb thumb drive for the Ubuntu-18.04 iso.
If you want to there are no-cost utilities available to get the usb bootable, it might be way quicker to boot compared to the DVD and you might also be able to get hold of issues.
For the first try do disconnect the rust spinners which might get the system boot quickly.

Ubuntu ISOs require no special preparation to be bootable from a thumbdrive. Just dump the raw ISO to the thumbdrive starting at block 0.

If I have time this evening, I will try booting my "smoke test" FX-8320 box from an 18.04 DVD and see what happens.
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vishalsuvagia
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:30 pm

just brew it! wrote:
Ubuntu ISOs require no special preparation to be bootable from a thumbdrive. Just dump the raw ISO to the thumbdrive starting at block 0.

+1, will definitely try that out. No offence though, I have a multi-boot usb drive which is mix of ubuntu-16.04, 18.04 and few PE utilities which of course is thanks to the courtesy of the utilities.
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:56 pm

vishalsuvagia wrote:
just brew it! wrote:
Ubuntu ISOs require no special preparation to be bootable from a thumbdrive. Just dump the raw ISO to the thumbdrive starting at block 0.

+1, will definitely try that out. No offence though, I have a multi-boot usb drive which is mix of ubuntu-16.04, 18.04 and few PE utilities which of course is thanks to the courtesy of the utilities.

Ahh, yes... for multi-boot off of a single USB drive you would need some other 3rd party boot manager.

I just have a pile of these I bought years ago, and I put a different ISO on each. :wink:
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 3:13 pm

If you just want to test drive the OS for kicks, you can just enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and grab Ubuntu 18.04 off the Windows Store, it's a one-click install.

I know what you're thinking, but it works WAY better than you ever imagine. I actually use it for development myself, saves the hassle of having a VM, sharing files on the network, it's really fast, and so on and so forth.
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 7:07 pm

Well... aside from it taking for frikkin' ever for the live image to boot from DVD, bringing 18.04.2 up on my FX-8320 "smoke test" box was completely uneventful once I realized that the reason the tray on the optical drive wouldn't open was that the power to it was disconnected. :roll:

Booted into the desktop without incident, and the keyboard/mouse are fully functional. I'm posting this from the live session (so the onboard NIC was clearly auto-configured successfully as well). Looks like the old Radeon 7450 in this box has a reasonable driver out-of-box too; the desktop is running at the native 1920x1080 resolution of the connected display.

I'm currently making a thumbdrive of the same live image so I can investigate whether tweaking any of the USB settings in the BIOS will reproduce the symptoms described in this thread, without having to wait 5+ minutes for it to boot each time.
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Redocbew
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 7:12 pm

ronch wrote:
First thing, the mouse is completely dead. Then I realize, so is the keyboard.


I had a similar problem in Windows a while ago, but the board in that machine ended up dying before I had a chance to figure it out. Hopefully that's not what's happening to you!
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Apr 24, 2019 7:43 pm

Disabling "Legacy USB" support in the BIOS had no effect on keyboard/mouse (they still worked). However, USB live boot did not function with this option disabled.

At this point, my advice would be to make sure "Legacy USB" is enabled in your BIOS, and try booting from a USB thumbdrive instead. The difference in boot time was approximately a factor of 5 faster than DVD, even booting from a USB 2.0 thumbdrive -- about 1 minute from reset to desktop.

Once it is up, try different USB ports. Just boot the live image up, and try moving the keyboard/mouse around to different ports to see if the OS will detect them (hotplug should work).

(Also posted from an 18.04.2 live session.)
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Thu Apr 25, 2019 4:48 pm

Looks like this may be an 18.04.2 point release breakage that happens on certain systems. Where exactly does it get stuck? When it gets to the desktop? Can you get a console login prompt by hitting Ctrl-Alt-F3?

Or just back off to 18.04.1
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ronch
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Sat Apr 27, 2019 11:25 am

Ok, I created a bootable flash drive using Universal USB Creator and booted off it. This time I don't even reach the desktop; after showing the familiar Ubuntu bootup screen an error pops up saying, "Unable to find a medium containing a live file system".

There are two options for booting off the flash drive in the Boot Menu: 'UEFI USB Flash Drive PMAP' and 'USB Flash Drive PMAP'. The UEFI option presents me with a text-only menu while the non-UEFI gives me a fancier menu with the Ubuntu logo graphics. I was kinda expecting the opposite. In both cases the keyboard still works through the menus and the mouse still lights up. After selecting 'Try Ubuntu' in either case it seems the input devices immediately shut down because the mouse is no longer lit. FYI I tried this with both the southbridge USB controller and the VIA controller but input still shuts off.

At this point I don't know if I should continue. I ditched Linux before because of the bugs I encountered (on another system) and now I'm getting this. Not sure it's worth the trouble when something as simple as the keyboard and mouse stop working. And there's that error message I mentioned above as well. Maybe I'll explore Linux again after a few years. Thanks for all your help, guys. I really appreciate it. Looks like it's not time for me to go Linux yet, unfortunately.
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Sat Apr 27, 2019 1:21 pm

Ubuntu ISOs have their own built-in universal bootloader which can handle booting from optical or USB media. I bet Universal USB Creator is adding its own bootloader which is conflicting with Ubuntu's. You need to use a tool that just writes the raw ISO directly to the thumbdrive without modifying it at all.

If you're still up for another go, try writing the image with this tool instead: http://www.easynas.org/wiki/how-to-burn ... nto-a-usb/
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Redocbew
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Sat Apr 27, 2019 1:36 pm

Rufus is another tool for Windows which I've used to make USB drives for Linux.

https://rufus.ie/

You may not care at this point, but I'm with JBI that this does not sound at all like a typical experience when installing Ubuntu.
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Sat Apr 27, 2019 4:47 pm

I've gotten so accustomed to just opening a CLI window and issuing a dd command to copy disk images around that I occasionally need to be reminded (by threads like this) that doing a raw block copy on Windows is typically done via 3rd party tools. I imagine there's probably a way to do it from the Windows CLI as well, but if there is I am not aware of what the magical incantation is. :wink:
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Redocbew
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Sat Apr 27, 2019 7:26 pm

There might be a way to do it using robocopy. I'd have to look it up also to be sure. :lol:
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mikeowins
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Wed Jul 31, 2019 10:35 pm

Redocbew wrote:
Rufus is another tool for Windows which I've used to make USB drives for Linux.

rufus.ie

You may not care at this point, but I'm with JBI that this does not sound at all like a typical experience when installing Ubuntu.


Why I have no success with this tool? Kbuntu with Kingston Data Traveller
 
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Re: Ubuntu 18.04.. no input

Thu Aug 01, 2019 9:15 am

mikeowins wrote:
Redocbew wrote:
Rufus is another tool for Windows which I've used to make USB drives for Linux.

rufus.ie

You may not care at this point, but I'm with JBI that this does not sound at all like a typical experience when installing Ubuntu.


Why I have no success with this tool? Kbuntu with Kingston Data Traveller

To be honest I tried about 4 different tools with 4 different versions of Linux to try to get something to install on a semi-old laptop. Never could get it to work. I think it must be a hardware incompatibility error.

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