Keyboard Stopped Working/Not-Responsive

[vtpoet]

On my daughter's laptop, HP Stream, running Kubuntu 17.04:

A.) Keyboard stopped working/nonresponsive. Touchpad works. Can't login.
B.) Tried USB Keyboard, but also doesn't work, as if keyboards are somehow being blocked?
C.) Don't have touchscreen so can't use virtual keyboard.
D.) Booted up with Linux Mint on USB Flash Drive and keyboard works fine so... appears to be Kernel or Plasma related?

Any suggestions?

[vtpoet]

Okay. Using recovery mode, I'm at a root shell prompt. Keyboard works fine. This is definitely a Plasma problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

What system files could I reset, reinstall, delete in order to "reboot" the keyboard?

[oshunluvr]

Xorg controls keyboard input. You might try reconfigure the xserver from the shell in recovery mode:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

If that doesn't work, reinstalling it:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg

To have a look at what might be happening, boot normally (no keyboard), then boot into recovery mode and read through /var/log/Xorg.1.log and see what happened on the previous boot.

There's also an XINPUT package that you could try re-installing instead of or along with xserver.

[vtpoet]

Thanks. Reconfiguring xserver doesn't appear to work. I can start up plasmashell as root via "startx", but still no keyboard, only touchpad.

I'm having trouble connecting to the network. Can't try your next suggestion until I connect. You wouldn't happen to know how to start network services via command line? It's been a while since I've done that...

[vtpoet]

Here's an idea.

What can I delete so that plasma boots straight into her account (enable autologin)? That's part of the hang up. I can't log her in without a functional keyboard. If i could at least get logged in, then I could try a bluetooth keyboard and have a connection?

[oshunluvr]

Here's an idea.

What can I delete so that plasma boots straight into her account without having to log in? That's part of the hang up. I can't log her in without a functional keyboard. If i could at least get logged in, then I could try a bluetooth keyboard and have a connection?

There's nothing you can "delete" that I'm aware of that removes the requirement to log in. You could try creating a /etc/sddm.conf file with these contents:

[Autologin]
User=$USERNAME
Session=plasma.desktop

with your username in the place of $USERNAME, but you're assuming that logging in will fix the issue or that a bluetooth keyboard would behave differently.

In your first post you made it sound like this just recently started. What changed in advance of the issue starting? I assume your network issue is because you're using wifi and logging from the user screen. Any chance you can plug in the ethernet connection?

It is possible the issue lies with SDDM (the display manager) rather than xorg at all. If logging in causes the keyboard to function, look there. If Mint works from a USB stick, have you tried Kubuntu that way also?

[vtpoet]

Thanks. I got there right before you responded.

As far as bluetooth goes... not assuming, just wanted to try it (since that's the one option I haven't tried). Could be a USB problem? In searching for a solution to this problem, recall someone having a problem with "KDE" and USB "tables"? Having to purge and reinstall. This is all slightly above my paygrade. My daughter tells me she didn't change anything. She had been having trouble with Plasma switching off her touchpad. She says she logged out, then when she tried to log back in, the touchpad worked and the keyboard didn't.

Anyway, if a bluetooth keyboard works (where the usb keyboard didn't) then that possibly suggests a usb problem associated with plasma.

I don't have Kubuntu on a stick, but can do that.

Anyway, I'm now logged into her account. Still no keyboard functionality but an improvement. Will try the bluetooth keyboard and get back to you.

[vtpoet]

Well... that didn't work. Could find device but wanted me to type in pin. Amazing what you can't do without a keyboard...

[Edit] Also, in the event that reinstalling is the quickest and least painful solution, being able to login means she can save her home folder to a USB drive with just the touchpad. Thanks for your help as far as that goes.

[vtpoet]

Another question... Now that I'm logged in, can I access TTY with just the touchpad? Wondering if TTY will work?

[Snowhog]

Thanks. Reconfiguring xserver doesn't appear to work. I can start up plasmashell as root via "startx", but still no keyboard, only touchpad.

That is not a good thing to be doing. Running startx ‘as root’ — sudo startx — is a good way to muck up ownership in ones /home directory. A change of ownership to ‘root’ of the .Xauthority file (check to see if that is the case) results in any manner of ‘issues’ when one attempts to login or get to the Desktop.

[vtpoet]

Fortunately, I didn't muck things up that way.

Not sure how running startx as root would muck up ones home folder, since booting as root doesn't affect anything in ones home folder (unless one deliberately alters files). Further, unless one enables networking, running startx treats all system files, including the home folder, as read only. [Edit: Booting into root in recovery mode isn't the same as sudo'ing.]

But I could be wrong. I'll take your warning under advisement. Note to self...

At present, I was able to edit ssdm.conf and enable autologin. That has allowed me to back up the entirety of her home folder and rescue all the work she's done on her term paper (high school). She can continue working on that with my reliable 32 bit system.

Now, my hands are untied. I can reinstall the OS if need be or I can continue to try to solve this conundrum. And I'm still stumped.

[oshunluvr]

If reinstall is an option, it might be your easiest path. Whatever's jacked up will take longer to determine than a reinstall will. If you installed home to a separate partition (or used btrfs) you don't need to copy anything off. Just rename the her home folder to something else then move her files once it's back up and running.

If you didn't separate your home (always recommended and this sort of thing is why), booting to the Mint stick and copying her files somewhere safe will do.

[vtpoet]

Thanks oshunlovr. I think I'll take your advice. On my own systems, my own best practice is to create a separate partition and symbolically link the selected files (everything but for OS specific files in the home folder) to the separate partition. This means that if I decide to install a different desktop, old desktop preferences aren't cluttering things up.

In my daughter's case, the little HP Stream's "hard drive" is a mere 32g --- not really big enough to partition. :/

How does butterfs help in these situations? Educate me.

[oshunluvr]

I can't imagine what you're symlinking to into your home. If home is on a separate partition, you simply mount it as /home - no links needed. If you mean your leaving /home within the OS and then linking to folders for the media files - documents, etc. - that I understand. That's real useful if you're multi-booting and want to keep various configs separate from different installs. Another solution is to bind mount to the folders - a similar outcome as simlinks except outside programs like chroot see the folders as mounts instead of symlinks. Some programs will not transverse symlinks.

If you install using btrfs, the default installer will segregate the root (the OS) and home into separate subvolumes. This has the benefit of keeping home separate from the install, but in a case like this one where a very small drive is in use, it keeps all the free space in one file system so root and home share the free space because they're both on the same partition. The additional benefit here is you could simply snapshot the home subvolume, do the reinstall and move the media/data/ files into the new home subvolume or even just rename and use the previous subvolume. BTRFS also allows the transmission of a subvolume onto another device for backup purposes.

[oshunluvr]

BTW, using btrfs instead of symlinking or bind mounts., you could create separate subvolumes for your media/data folders and just mount them like any other mount. Then it would be completely transparent to the overlying OS and you would be able to individually backup each subvolume separately on a different schedule or with different priorities. Like, documents might be important to backup often, but music files you ripped from your CD collection need not be backed up because you still have the CDs.