Re: [gentoo-amd64] Keyboard Stops Working Under X [Solved]

[Frank Peters <frank.peters@comcast.net>]

On Sat, 17 Nov 2012 18:21:01 -0500
Phil Turmel <philip@turmel.org> wrote:

>
> I'm not inclined to
> fork Xorg, so I've sucked it up and joined the udev/evdev world.
>

The problem was a faulty keyboard.  In retrospect it would seem obvious,
but the fact that I could regain control by stopping X and the fact that
there were other recent reports of identical issues prompted me to
make a post to this list.  For example, see the following link:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-input-evdev/+bug/1066189

For the time being I can keep using my "antiquated" input drivers, but
eventually I will be forced to adapt by switching to evdev.

Yes, *forced*.  The freedom of choice is slowly being removed.  We are
moving toward, a monolithic, one-size-fits-all, Linux.

Let's consider a case in point from the Gentoo portage tree.

I have lots of ebooks in DJVU format, and I really can appreciate the
excellent DJVU reader called djview.  However, the latest update of
djview came as quite a surprise.  Apparently, dbus is now required
by Gentoo to build the djview-4.9 package and there is no way to avoid
it.  My make.conf file has "-dbus" indicated but that means nothing.
Choice?  What choice?  No dbus, no djview.

Fortunately, I can compile the djview package myself outside of Gentoo
without using dbus, but the case illustrates the fact that even though
certain options are available these options are being withheld by
the distributors.

Most Linux users probably could not care less about such things, but,
for me, the issue of choice is much more than just a philosophical rant.
It has significant practical consequences as well, but a discussion
of those would be too far off topic.

Thanks to all those who offered advice.

Frank Peters