Lost Keyboard with SUSE Linux
The new Samsung SyncMaster 204B LCD display arrived a couple of days ago. It is intended to replace the 6 year old Dell P991 CRT monitor. As a novice Linux user, I fired up YaST to configure the system for the new display after I hooked up the new monitor. I dutifully typed in the root password into the following window:
Then used "Graphics Card and Monitor" under "Hardware" to launch SaX2, changed the Monitor to "--> LCD 1600X1200@60HZ", then clicked the "OK" button. The following message box popped up:
The screen blanked out momentary then came back with another pop up window indicating the test failed (This error can not be reproduced right now).
The same thing occurred in repeated attempts. Somewhat irritated, I pressed "Save" button anyway. Nothing seemed to be broken initially. But soon I realized that the keyboard is not working anymore. In fact, there're some indication that the keyboard was associated to an invisible console attached to the system, e.g. if the login sequence of the root user was typed in, followed by the "init 6" command, the system's hard drive started to spin.
After googling for "suse lost keyboard" for a bit, I decided the most promising solution was to run SaX2 as a root user. My plan was to root into the fail save mode. Remember I'm a novice to Linux. I didn't know what to expect with the fail save mode. I only hoped that SaX2 can be started without to much playing around.
To my delight, the fail safe mode presented a console login. After logged in as the root, SaX2 was easily started by typing in sax2. The program even offer a setting that it believed to be appropriate. And the keyboard returned.
Epilogue: As I'm writing about this ordeal, one of the most worrisome to me in my history of working with Linux, I tried to reproduce the problem. I actually though it's a bug with SUSE Linux. But the problem is not reducing anymore. After all, it probably is a result of some kind of file corruption. Now it made me uneasy again, recalling that I just rebuilt one hard disk of the two disk RAID in the system.
