Date: Sun, 09 Aug 1998 12:35:28 -0700 From: Mark Shepard <mns@pobox.com> To: "David W. Alderman" <dave@mmrd.com>, "Jan B. Koum " <jkb@best.com>, richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk), Brooks Davis <brdavis@orion.ac.hmc.edu> Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: ProConnect console switch [ was Re: Kbd/Mon/Mouse switch recomendations ] Message-ID: <199808091940.MAA08753@proxy4.ba.best.com>
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Hi. I found this thread in the freebsd mail archives and wanted to add some
comments. I'm currently experimenting with console switches also, and ran
into the same problems with the ProConnect -- with NT and FBSD boxes
plugged into a switch, the NT box works fine but the FBSD box fails to
detect a mouse on boot, yet works fine if the console switch is "inserted"
after booting with a "real" mouse. FWIW, here's what's happening: the
ProConnect appears to not implement the PS2 0xF5 disable command --
FreeBSD's psmprobe() routine at one point tries to enable (0xF4) and then
disable the PS2 mouse, and the disable fails with an 0xFE (which indicates
either a bad command or data transmission error -- but since FreeBSD seems
to include code to retransmit, I assume the ProConnect just doesn't
implement the disable command. Commenting out this test from psmprobe()
seems to allow the mouse to be detected. I wouldn't be surprised if other
OS's (NT) simply don't use the 0xF5 disable command, though it wouldn't
have been that hard for ProConnect to implement it either (BTW, I haven't
talked with Linksys's tech-support to verify whether or not they implement
the F5 disable -- it could be the problem has some other subtler cause such
as a data xmit error which is timing related.)
Question: How's the video quality compare between the OmniView, Aten and
ProConnect units? I'm looking for a 4-port switch which will handle
1600x1200 video with minimal degradation of video quality for ~$200 or
less. Aside from this PS2 mouse quirk, the ProConnect's video seems pretty
good -- perhaps a barely noticable ghosting, perhaps a very slight extra
fuzzyness at 1600x1200, but really pretty good.
Thanks.
Mark
file /usr/src/sys/i386/isa/psm.c (freebsd 2.2.7, sup'd a few days ago):
/* rebuild kernel with "option PSM_DEBUG=2" to see verbose error msgs */
psmprobe() {
...
#if 0 /* skip nitpicking test */
if (!enable_aux_dev(sc->kbdc) || !disable_aux_dev(sc->kbdc)) {
/* MOUSE ERROR */
restore_controller(sc->kbdc, command_byte);
if (verbose)
printf("psm%d: failed to enable the aux device.\n", unit);
endprobe(0);
}
#endif
...
}
--- Original Message ---
Hi,
I'm looking for recomendations for Keyboard/Monitor/Mouse switches for use
with my FreeBSD and NT systems. I just returned a LinkSys ProConnect 4
CPU switch yesterday because it seems to squash any attempts at serial or
ps/2 PnP probing. FreeBSD 2.2.6 also seemed unable to detect the PS/2
mouse through it at boot. After that disaster I figured I'd see what
people have had good luck with. I'm looking for a 4 port solution with
PS/2 and AT keyboard support and at least PS/2 mouse (good serial support
if possiable) support that works with PnP.
Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your time,
Brooks Davis
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