summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/x86/usb-legacy-support.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-27 10:05:51 +0000
committerDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-27 10:05:51 +0000
commit5d1646d90e1f2cceb9f0828f4b28318cd0ec7744 (patch)
treea94efe259b9009378be6d90eb30d2b019d95c194 /Documentation/x86/usb-legacy-support.rst
parentInitial commit. (diff)
downloadlinux-upstream.tar.xz
linux-upstream.zip
Adding upstream version 5.10.209.upstream/5.10.209upstream
Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/x86/usb-legacy-support.rst')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/x86/usb-legacy-support.rst50
1 files changed, 50 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/x86/usb-legacy-support.rst b/Documentation/x86/usb-legacy-support.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e01c08b7c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/x86/usb-legacy-support.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+==================
+USB Legacy support
+==================
+
+:Author: Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>, 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.