As a continuation of this thread, this afternoon I changed the video card with a temporary, old, nVidia GEFORcE.

To my delight, the computer started and booted (although only one screen of two and in 800x600 mode); I thought that this could be explained by the new GPU?

However, when it finished booting and i was left with the prompt waiting for usermane and password, the keyboard was not there!
Restart -> launch the BIOS setup -> the keyboard is ok (i can change values, move the cursor, arrow-keys and everything).
Restart -> at the end of the booting the keyboard disappears again.

I tried to boot via a slackware CD -> the keyboard works as it should -> mount/dev/sda1 to /mnt -> pkgtool -> and run the setup -> reconfiguring all system scripts -> maybe it will fix everything -> IT DIDN'T!

I know that if i changed the motherboard, reisnatlling the OS would be implied; is it the same changing video card? Have i lost my system?

Thanks

Did you update the Nvidia driver after the card swap? What card did you swap in?

What type if keyboard? How is it connected?

Thanks for interest in the thread.

I did not have nvidia drivers installed; i was happy with nouveau (and also I could neveer install the nvidia drivers successfully).
It's just a UK-layout USB keyboard.

Have you, or anyone else, swapped hardware on a slackware box and kept on working/using the machine as if nothing had changed?

I have not swapped out a video card, and kept it working. The closest I have got to that, was on an older mother board that had an Nvidia GPU, Nvidia dropped support for the card. I tried to go back to Nouveau, and it did not work well. I ended up doing a fresh install, then Nouveau worked.

Long term solution, a new mother board, and a Nvidia card, not intagrated on the mother board.

I have several PCs in service, all but one (an ancient ATi Thinkpad) running various nvidia GPUs. On 3 machines I have rather routinely swapped out GPUs between a GT 640 and a GTX 760, both upward and downwards. I use the proprietary nvidia drivers installed with the .run installers from Runlevel 3. Regardless of how I change them out, each boots to Runlevel 3 by default. Although I have seen existing drivers for one work with the other, most often I just install the appropriate driver at Runlevel 3 before I startx. To be clear and exact, I generally login Runlevel 3 as root and launch "sddm" to enter Runlevel 4.

There should be no bearing on PS/2 or USB keyboards or mice due to graphics drivers. I suggest using a LiveSlak Thumbdrive to chroot in and view logs to discover why the appropriate kernel modules are not loading. It may well be an initrd fault (I don't know since I never use initrd on Slackware) but if that's the case switching even temporarily to the HUGE kernel should solve the problem.

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Did you by any chance combine the replacement of the video card with an attempt of a kernel upgrade?

If your booted kernel does not find any matching modules it will not be able to load the USB drivers needed for the USB keyboard.

regards Henrik

You most likely have not lost your system. That should be obvious by booting at all successfully to what I assume is Runlevel 3 (multi-user command line).

I should have probably expanded on why I don't like nor use initrd, especially if root drive and kernel version is included in them. I am an inveterate tinkerer and commonly switch drives around various PCs just as I do with GPUs and other hardware. In fact, I just bought a PCIe M.2 NVME "caddy" that treats NVME drives like a monstrous floppy or optical drive. I can remove a drive from one PC and slap it in the caddy and boot it on a different PC. Point is, even differing motherboards isn't necessarily a problem... unl;esss initrd was created specifically for a different one. UUID cab be another major obstacle to swapping drives out.

So swapping hardware, even the motherboard, is not necessarily a show stopper. You just have to use either the HUGE kernel, or one you've custom built that has the needed modules either hard coded or on-demand.

Make sure the $kernel-version you are booting has a matching "/lib/modules/$kernel-version" entry and if you plan to use a proprietary nvidia driver, you will also need either the same version $kernel-headers or fully qualified "/usr/src/$kernel-version" as well (the source or headers not needed for nouveau, iirc)

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Yes, several times over the years. As another board member has pointed out, it is just a matter of loading the correct drivers (if needed) for the "new" hardware.

Try a live boot to see if there is a hardware problem.

https://download.liveslak.org/

A video card shouldn't mess up a keyboard. Does everything work with a live boot?

Almost all old nvidia cards run fine with Nouveau. You can swap them out all day long without a problem. Nouveau doesn't work when it's a new unsupported vid card. And installing a new kernel will usually update nouveau - not always though. And the Nouveau driver is installed with a full install. You are doing a full install right?

Are you running custom kernels?

I apologize for the delay (dealing with family health issues).

I read the few comments lastly posted and:
1) no i have not simultaneously swapped hardware and played with the kernel
2) yes, the system seems ok as it boots to runlevel 3 but with no use of a keyboard I cannot do anything,
3) doesn't initrd get created at every slackware installation (with the system configuration screens: mouse, network, fonts, windows manager, etc...?)
4) i do manage to boot a slackware cd and chroot in the installed system files however, i wouldnt know what logs to look in to
5) the old and 'new' GPU both use the nouveau divers so, there shouldnt be an issue, right?
6) i use the HUGE kernel not at all customized

One last (perhaps silly) observation: isn't the core of a FC and its software i.e. the OS, flooded with billions of 'zeros' and 'ones' that continuously and simbiotically dance with each other in perfect synchronization? and doesn't removing/breaking this symbiosis (like, for example, changing a component) break that synchronized dance?

edit: i just noticed that when I boot with a slackware CD and lsblk, /dev/sda1 (root partition) and /dev/sda2 (swap partition) have an exclamation mark before while /dev/sda3 (user partition). I am sure that those 2 exclamation marks shouldnt be there

When you say you boot a slackware CD do you mean you tried the liveslack - link above?

By booting with a live CD the eliminates the possibily of a messed up install you've already done. If things aren't working with the live CD I would suspect a hardware issue.

If you mean you did boot with the live CD and the keyboard isn't working try another keyboard.

The Huge Kernel doesn't need an initrd setup. It has everything built in already.

I meant that I booted from a slackware installation CD (without actually carrying the installation process) and everything works. I tried to explain in the OP that after doing that, i run the post-installation script and it does include a 'make a initrd' option.

I guess the difference from booting a live-slack CD is that I would have a windows manager but, the issue is the disappearing the keyboard.

I guess, i will put my heart in peace and do a full reinstall tomorrow. The thing that worries me the most is that the GPU i am using now is temporary and soon i will upgrade it and I would really not want to go through a similar hardware-software inconsistencies

It's pretty much plug and play if you're using AMD or Intel GPUs and a recent kernel that supports the gpu. I cannot speak on Nvidia as I have not used one in ages. No driver installation or editing configs needed. I just swap out cards and everything from desktop to games work just fine out of the box.

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As said by scuzzy_dog the huge kernel does not need any initrd as it contains everything needed to mount the root file system. However, the huge kernel still relies on kernel modules for things like network cards, sound cards and most of all in this case: USB peripherals.

Do you have any other machine in your network? Are you able to ping the machine from your network? If not, I would again suspect that your machine has been unable to load a kernel module for your network card. If you are able to ping, you might be able to log in using ssh to study contents of log files and output of interesting commands like dmesg and lsmod.

regards Henrik

Something really weird is happening now.

I just finished the 2nd full system re-install and both times the keyboard is not responding. This is crazy: the same keyboard was fine and allowed me to type, move the cursor up&down and enter or delete during the install but when the install ends and I reboot the system, I have no keyboard!!!

(one thing that i did not consider is/was the hardware changes that might have been done while the computer was a the service centre)

Here, i don't think it's a matter of kernel modules, initrd, etc....