From 23deb06821442506615f34bd92ccd6a2422629d7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "H. Peter Anvin" Date: Fri, 30 May 2008 17:19:03 -0700 Subject: x86: move x86-specific documentation into Documentation/x86 The current organization of the x86 documentation makes it appear as if the "i386" documentation doesn't apply to x86-64, which is does. Thus, move that documentation into Documentation/x86, and move the x86-64-specific stuff into Documentation/x86/x86_64 with the eventual goal to move stuff that isn't actually 64-bit specific back into Documentation/x86. Signed-off-by: H. Peter Anvin --- Documentation/x86/i386/usb-legacy-support.txt | 44 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 44 insertions(+) create mode 100644 Documentation/x86/i386/usb-legacy-support.txt (limited to 'Documentation/x86/i386/usb-legacy-support.txt') diff --git a/Documentation/x86/i386/usb-legacy-support.txt b/Documentation/x86/i386/usb-legacy-support.txt new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..1894cdfc69d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/x86/i386/usb-legacy-support.txt @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +USB Legacy support +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +Vojtech Pavlik , January 2004 + + +Also known as "USB Keyboard" or "USB Mouse support" in the BIOS Setup is a +feature that allows one to use the USB mouse and keyboard as if they were +their classic PS/2 counterparts. This means one can use an USB keyboard to +type in LILO for example. + +It has several drawbacks, though: + +1) On some machines, the emulated PS/2 mouse takes over even when no USB + mouse is present and a real PS/2 mouse is present. In that case the extra + features (wheel, extra buttons, touchpad mode) of the real PS/2 mouse may + not be available. + +2) If CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G is enabled, the PS/2 mouse emulation can cause + system crashes, because the SMM BIOS is not expecting to be in PAE mode. + The Intel E7505 is a typical machine where this happens. + +3) If AMD64 64-bit mode is enabled, again system crashes often happen, + because the SMM BIOS isn't expecting the CPU to be in 64-bit mode. The + BIOS manufacturers only test with Windows, and Windows doesn't do 64-bit + yet. + +Solutions: + +Problem 1) can be solved by loading the USB drivers prior to loading the +PS/2 mouse driver. Since the PS/2 mouse driver is in 2.6 compiled into +the kernel unconditionally, this means the USB drivers need to be +compiled-in, too. + +Problem 2) can currently only be solved by either disabling HIGHMEM64G +in the kernel config or USB Legacy support in the BIOS. A BIOS update +could help, but so far no such update exists. + +Problem 3) is usually fixed by a BIOS update. Check the board +manufacturers web site. If an update is not available, disable USB +Legacy support in the BIOS. If this alone doesn't help, try also adding +idle=poll on the kernel command line. The BIOS may be entering the SMM +on the HLT instruction as well. + -- cgit v1.2.3