Kernel doesn't detect USB devices based on BIOS SATA settings

[Ryan Lovett]

This bug occurs in Lucid but was not present in Hardy.

I installed Lucid on a Sun w2100z workstation and on first boot neither the keyboard nor the mouse were functioning nor were external USB flash drives detected. lsusb only returned two devices and they were the internal hubs. I searched for similar reports and the solution was usually to enable "Legacy USB" mode in the BIOS. This particular machine had no such option but it did have separate USB and USB 2.0 options which were both enabled.

I decided to try flipping other options in the BIOS one by one and discovered to my amazement that enabling SATA causes USB to function. The workstation's only disks are on the SCSI bus. There was another option to enable the "SATA BIOS" once SATA was enabled, but that can be left off without affecting USB. The "SATA BIOS" option caused a boot message to appear which described the SATA controller but I don't know what else it does.

Note that this workstation and our other w2100z's function fine while running Hardy and with SATA disabled.

The keyboard also works fine within the BIOS and grub regardless of the SATA BIOS settings.

Linux foobar 2.6.32-23-generic #37-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jun 11 08:03:28 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Ubuntu 2.6.32-23.37-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5

[chazn85 (chaz-n)]

Please be sure to confirm this issue exists with the latest development release of Ubuntu. ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily/current/ . If the issue remains, please run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 607375

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

[Ryan Lovett (ryan-spacecoaster)]

Before I tried the Maverick ISO I figured I'd try the Lucid CD (the machine had been installed via PXE). With SATA disabled in the BIOS, everything was fine. Keyboard and mouse were detected and X and the console were functional. When I then rebooted back to the hard drive, keyboard and mouse were no longer functional. I'm going to try installing via Lucid CD rather than Lucid Net and see what happens.

[Ryan Lovett (ryan-spacecoaster)]

With SATA disabled in the BIOS, I installed Lucid via the amd64 desktop ISO on CD and the keyboard and mouse functioned both in the live environment and in the installed environment on disk. I proceeded to install all the available updates via Update Manager and when I rebooted, the machine lost the keyboard and mouse again. It appears that the problem crept in in the kernel package update.

Based on the above, did you still want me to try the Maverick ISO or did you want to look through any of the recent kernel changes?

[Ryan Lovett (ryan-spacecoaster)]

After holding down Shift to boot to the -21 kernel everything was fine, but -23 is still wonky.

[Ryan Lovett (ryan-spacecoaster)]

-24 is also broken wrt this.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in diagnosing the problem. From a terminal window please run:

apport-collect 607375

and then change the status of the bug to 'Confirmed'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]