Installation Hangs

[Warren Block]

On Mon, 13 Oct 2008, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 09:57:22AM -0600, Warren Block wrote:
>> On Sun, 12 Oct 2008, ton80 wrote:
>>
>>> I am trying to install FreeBSD.
>>> During the install (actually at the beginning of the process) the system
>>> hangs indefinitely.
>>> When it gets to the select country screen...it is frozen.
>>> During the boot process, as it is reading all the hardware, it finds the USB
>>> controller OK then later it states there was an IO error and that the USB
>>> controller is halted. I have a USB Keyboard and mouse...so I would say the
>>> problem is here.
>>> Is there any workaround I can use to get things going?
>>
>> Set "USB Legacy Support" to disabled in the BIOS.  If that isn't
>> available, it might work to boot with the keyboard detached.  Connect it
>> after the BIOS boot, at the FreeBSD bootloader prompt or maybe at the
>> country select screen.
>
> I don't see how this would solve or even affect his problem.
>
> As I understand it, "USB Legacy Support" is intended for operating
> systems which do not have a USB stack available to them, thus making USB
> keyboards/mice appear as PS/2 keyboards/mice within MS-DOS and so on.  I
> believe the way it works is that the BIOS acts as a software translation
> layer between the USB device and PS/2 interaction.  This translation is
> lost the instant interrupts are re-mapped or the southbridge/USB
> controller is initialised.
>
> The OP is making it past boot2/loader, the kernel and all its drivers
> are fully loaded (including the USB stack).

An MSI motherboard did the same thing, only with a USB mouse.  The BIOS 
defaulted to legacy emulation.  The mouse would be briefly enabled 
during boot, then disabled as FreeBSD started.  I found a message 
explaining it, disabled BIOS emulation, had no further problems, and... 
didn't investigate further.  Now I can't find the exact post, but did 
find a thread that is similar:

http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=1607862+0+archive/2008/freebsd-questions/20080224.freebsd-questions

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA