2.0.27 kernel problem with PS/2 touchpad on Dell Latitude LM?

Jim Partan (jimp@waves1.whoi.edu)
Fri, 3 Jan 1997 13:38:37 -0500 (EST)


Hello,

I just installed Red Hat 4.0 on my brother's Dell Latitude LM notebook,
upgrading to the 2.0.27 kernel and pcmcia-cs-2.9.1.

Before anyone touches the PS/2 touchpad, everything works normally (in
text mode at least). However, the keyboard freezes when anyone touches the
touchpad. Suspending and then resuming the computer unfreezes the
keyboard, and subsequent touching of the touchpad doesn't hang anything
any more -- everything appears fine. This is quite strange, because one
method of suspending the computer is to press a key combination, which
works even though all the other keys on the keyboard appear to be dead!

(I've had a similar problem on a Gateway 2000 P5-75 desktop at work:
moving the PS/2 mouse sometimes hangs the keyboard, although you can still
telnet in -- only the keyboard hangs.)

Here's the really annoying part of problem: after pressing the resume
button, running a program such as emacs or the X server creates an oops, I
believe -- at least a segmentation fault with printouts of the contents of
various registers. (I'm sorry I don't have these messages -- I'll try to
get my brother to send them to me.) Smaller programs (e.g. vi, top, cat,
ls) still work as usual; only the larger programs seem to have problems.

As I said, I'll ask my brother to look in the system logs and copy down
the error message on the screen. In the meantime, does anyone have any
suggestions, either on what he should look for, or a possible solution?

The kernel does not have APM support compiled in.

Thanks very much,

Jim

jimp@waves1.whoi.edu (please cc: any replies to me)