So let me get this straight. During the install, keyboard and mouse function normally but when you boot the newly installed system they don't? Since I don't see that anyone has yet asked is this with a "Full Recommended Install" or are you pruning down what you think you don't need? Not only does it make no sense that USB functions when booting the install media, even if there was some basic hardware failure or serious fault in the drive or drive system, it makes no sense to be so consistently such a selective failure.

Allow me to mention one odd caveat. I have no clue as to why this sometimes happens, and so commonly with USB, but very rarely I will boot to my Main system and notice that my keyboard didn't light up during the normal stage of the boot process and upon finally reaching the login prompt, they still are not working. I begrudgingly smash the Reset button and everything operates as normal and continues to for multiple reboots for months.. and then one day out of the blue... This may happen once out of 200 boot attempts and it doesn't matter what distro I'm booting (even a systemd boot with parallel init or stock kernels) and it always returns to normal after a quick reset. That doesn't make sense to me either. I'm just glad it's rare and chalk it up to USB quirkiness.

So does a reset work for you?

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Yes, you got it right!
The keyboard and mouse work during installation of the OS but as soon as the installation process ends and after rebooting: nothing!

No grunting with the installation! I always choose FULL install (I learned the hard way that some dependencies not installed, if say I omit games - not interested -, some other major package is not working correctly). So, from then on, FULL install every time.

And yes, both mouse and keyboard lights are on. (On this issue, I actually had a minor confrontation with the 'technician' at the service centre from which I just came back; I explained the issue and he looked inside the desktop and made up that the USB cable was not connected on the motherboard. That resulted in a very annoying smirky smile that was further increased when he pointed out the lights on mouse and keyboard but, eventually..., he froze! He realized that it was true and both peripherals were unusable).

They kept the PC for further testing without charging me extra.

p.s.: I still have a strong feeling that it is a motherboard issue and that the booting with a different GPU was just a coincidence. There must be some weird memory loop keeping the motherboard from not functioning as it should or, that it is really on the way to the trash-land.

I will post back their response/solution as I am sure that a few members may be intrigued as I am of this, probably never-heard, hardware behaviour.

Thanks for now

Which kernel version are you booting after the installation? What kind of bootloader are you using? Do you boot good old MBR style or do you boot UEFI style?

When booting from installation media you get a kernel which matches the modules in the initrd on the installation media. My guess is still that you somehow end up with a kernel that does not match your installed modules after your fresh install.

Are you able to ping the machine from the network?

A fresh Slackware 15.0 installation is supposed to boot old kernel 5.15.19 and it should have matching kernel modules installed. However, if you somehow failed to update your boot loader you might still be booting an old (or rather newer) kernel which does not have any matching modules.

Once booted to a text console you should see a message like:

Is that the version number you see?

At some point it will be a really good idea to upgrade the original Slackware 15.0 kernel as well as other software provided by Slackware patch packages. But first you need to be able to login to your machine.

regards Henrik

I boot as i have always booted, MBR and yes to
You mention upgrading the kernel! I thought that every time i 'slackpkg update && installl-new && upgrade-all' it also includes the kernel source, modules and finrmware, when present. And I always run 'lilo' every time the kernel is upgraded

Anyhow, it seems that my pc returned yesterday 'randomly'* working. They (the service centre) couldn't explain how they fixed it but the OS was finally blamed. Their explanation:
- we unplugged your HDD and SDD and booted our Windows OS; it was booting fine
- then, we tested the video card and it's definitely faulty,
- so, we used the spare video card you provided and,
- finally, we reconnected your HDD and SDD and every peripherals was working again.


* the video card i offered for testing is almost 20yrs old and it seems that cannot keep up with any graphical effort. As soon as I startx the pc freezes. At times it manages to get in to graphical mode but as soon as i open a simple folder.... freeze again! So. i am back to square 1: hunting for a decent video card (it will probably end up being another nVidia).

I will mark this thread as Solved and will almost certainly open a similar one once i get a new nVidia card to ask for help, should I fail to install the native drivers by myself.

p.s.: is a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 Windforce OC 6g Video Card an nVidia card? if the answer is NO, it's most likely the reason I could NEVER install the native drivers on my previous card (i recall the error was about incompatibility between the kernels: card vs. drivers)

GeForce GTX 1060 sounds like an nVidia card to me... Yes, confirmed here: https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Ca...F2OC-6GD-20#kf

regards Henrik

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I'm running that GPU "as we speak" and the latest production branch driver can be found here, https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driv.../223426/en-us/

Installation instructions can be found under the heading, "Additional Information" at the above link. Under that same heading you can find detailed installation instructions by clicking on "README."

Thank you! i am waiting for it and when i receive it, this will be very useful.
Thanks again.

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