[elrepo] Keyboard ceases functioning after install of kmod-nvidia-340xx

[kht-lists]

On Tuesday, June 23, 2020 7:19 PM, Jeremy Yocum <oceanjeremy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Phil—
>
> Unfortunately there's nothing in my /etc/yum.repos.d/CentOS-Vault.repo file. I just read on an old post that it can take quite some time before old kernels get moved to the vault repo, so this is probably another dead end.
>
> I'm really at a loss here. The keyboard was working *fine* until I installed the ELRepo .rpms, and now nothing I do will bring it back. The keyboard doesn't work when I go back to 4.18.0-147.el8.x86_64, the previous kernel, either, so I fail to see how reinstalling 4.18.0-147.8.1.el8_1.x86_64 will make it work.
>
> I really want to understand what happened so I can avoid running into the same problem in the future. Seeing as I'm new to Linux it's an uphill battle.
>
> But this was 100% caused by the ELRepo packages. Literally nothing else changed from when the keyboard worked to when it didn't. I powered the machine on, I installed the ELRepo packages, I rebooted and now the keyboard doesn't work. There weren't any other changes made. Nothing.
>
> I'm happy to do homework and troubleshoot, but I need some pointers because googling gets me nowhere. No combination of keywords sheds any light on it at all. Every search result brings me to someone who has an issue with their keyboard *and* the touchpad — but my touchpad works fine! No one has an issue where the machine's keyboard doesn't work, but the trackpad *does* work and the external USB keyboard
> *does* work.
>
> Does anyone have any insight? At all? Where I could even *start* diagnosing and troubleshooting? Even someone I could ask for advice from?
>
> Or should I just reinstall CentOS — and then steer far far clear of ELRepo for the rest of my days?
>
> I really, really don't want that to be my only answer. ELRepo seems like an invaluable toolbox maintained by some very dedicated people! I don't want to have to be afraid of it.
>
> — Jeremy

I have been watching this thread with some interest as I do use the nVidia driver from Elrepo and have for many years. I have installed Linux hundreds of times. I swear that sometime I have to install it two or three times on a new machine before the new machine learns to run it correctly. I know this is impossible and makes no sense. But... I recently installed Ubuntu Mate 20.04 on a brand new Intel NUC. All sorts of bizarre issues. After about 45 minutes of troubleshooting I reset the BIOS by removing the button battery (hard to do in laptop I know - perhaps you can do a factory reset from the BIOS menu?) and then reinstalled Linux. It has been running just fine ever since. What I would be tempted to do in your case...

1 - backup any important data from the machine
2 - backup any important data from the machine
3 - make sure the backups are good
(If you have some sort of external hard drive or a USB flash drive of 32 GB or bigger - if not, ask and I will explain how to split the hard drive to allow you to backup the OS to the same drive)
4 - download a copy of Clonezilla and burn to a small USB flash drive (or CD)
6 - reset the BIOS as best you can without a screwdriver :-)
6 - reinstall CentOS
7 - take a snapshot of the OS with Clonezilla - makes for an easy step backwards
8 - see what is working or not working and determine what you really need from Elrepo.
9 - try installing the nVidia driver and see what happens - if it breaks the keyboard try using the USB keyboard to uninstall the driver - if that fails Clonezilla will let you restore from the snapshot

As I said earlier I have used the nVidia driver for a long time but that is the only package I use from Elrepo. I have had good luck using the kernels and other packages from the regular CentOS and epel repos. I have used CentOS 5, 6 and now 7. In those versions I used yumpriorities to keep the repos from tripping over one another. It is my understanding that CentOS 8 has this sort of feature built in although I do not have much experience with 8.

Ken

> On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 3:10 PM Phil Perry <phil at elrepo.org> wrote:
>
>> On 23/06/2020 19:01, Jeremy Yocum wrote:
>>> Just to update everyone...
>>>
>>> I waited for a USB keyboard to come in the mail. Plugged in the USB
>>> keyboard and it worked just fine. Weirdly something about running the
>>> ELRepo drivers screwed up my NetworkManager so I had to manually add
>>> nameservers in order to actually get access to any repositories.
>>>
>>> I tried reinstalling the current kernel but I got this:
>>>
>>> [root at localhost ~]# yum reinstall kernel-4.18.0-147.8.1_el8_1.x86_64
>>> Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:10 ago on Tue 23 Jun 2020
>>> 01:31:07 PM EDT.
>>> Installed package *kernel-4.18.0-147.8.1.el8_1.x86_64* (from
>>> BaseOS) not available.
>>> Error: No packages marked for reinstall.
>>>
>>> I tried running "yum remove" and the kernel, and then running "yum
>>> install." It removed the kernel as expected but then said:
>>>
>>> [root at localhost ~]# yum install kernel-4.18.0-147.8.1_el8_1.x86_64
>>> Last metadata expiration check: 0:05:28 ago on Tue 23 Jun 2020
>>> 01:31:07 PM EDT.
>>> No match for argument: *kernel-4.18.0-147.8.1.el8_1.x86_64*
>>> Error: Unable to find a match: kernel-4.18.0-147.8.1.el8_1.x86_64
>>>
>>> So.... no, I can't reinstall the kernel as you suggested, Phil. It looks
>>> like that kernel disappeared somehow!
>>>
>>
>> This I can help with. I'm assuming you are running CentOS, not RHEL.
>> CentOS just released their el8.2 release. You are/were running a kernel
>> from the el8.1 release (denoted by the el8_1 release tag). When CentOS
>> went from el8.1 --> el8.2, all the old el8.1 packages (including your
>> kernel) were moved to the vault and are no longer available by default,
>> hence why yum can not find the package to reinstall. To make them
>> available again, you would need to enable the CentOS vault repo in your
>> yum configs.
>>
>>> From there I thought, "What the heck? I'll update to the newest kernel
>>> and see what happens."
>>>
>>> It updated as expected, but with the new kernel I still can't access my
>>> laptop's actual keyboard — /and/ my WiFi (Broadcom) driver stopped
>>> working. (I was actually expecting the WiFi to not work, since I was
>>> warned I'd need to repeat the process every time I upgrade a kernel).
>>>
>>> At this point, unless someone here has any other suggestions, I'm just
>>> going to back up my data, wipe the machine and reinstall CentOS.
>>>
>>> To sum up, as soon as I installed ELRepo's Nvidia Graphics driver:
>>> 1) I can no longer use my laptop's keyboard after I leave the
>>> grub menu, I can only use a USB keyboard
>>> 2) It screwed up my NetworkManager so I had to manually add
>>> nameservers
>>>
>>> ....anyone have any idea why it did this???
>>>
>>>
>>> — Jeremy
>>>
>>>
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