More Info on Console Driver Bug

[Michael J. Young]

I have some more information on the console driver bug that I reported
in a previous article (the one where the keyboard seemed to hang after
messing around with CTRL-S/CTRL-Q).

I was able to put an extra terminal on /dev/ttyM0 and poke around after
things got hung.  The kernel is still running correctly afterthe keyboard
hangs, and the console process is waiting (WCHAN) at 0x2287a72 (kd_tty)
normally.  When I kill the console process, the getty login prompt appears,
but the cursor is blinking funny as though unprinting characters are
being continually written to the screen.  Then suddenly "Password:" appears
(getty thinks someone is logging in, even though I haven't touched the
keyboard), and things hang up again.  In other words, the keyboard is
frotzed, and the kernel works fine on serial ports.

Resetting the machine doesn't always work.  The keyboard is hung.  When
this happens, only cycling the power does any good.

I can't be absolutely sure that the keyboard itself is not at fault, although
it seems passing strange that this failure mode appeared precisely when I
installed 2.4.  Has anyone else seen problems?

By the way, I'm using an Acer 900 10Mhz AT clone, which I know is supported
by Microport.
-- 
Mike Young
Software Development Technologies, Inc., Sudbury MA       Tel: +1 508 443 5779
Internet: mjy at sdti.sdti.com                 UUCP: {harvard,mit-eddie}!sdti!mjy