I have tried a number of PS/2 PCIe expansion cards, but none have worked with my PS/2 keyboard (from an IBM RS/6000 and it still looks and works like new). Older cards I know that work use an ISA bus. If you have used a PCIe PS/2 card with success, can you provide specific details so I may purchase one too?
Can’t be an usb?
It can’t when you are seriously using Qubes.
Could you give more detail of what you tried and how they did not work?
When I looked for such cards, it seemed like they were all USB controllers with an integrated PS/2 - USB converter. I guessed that they would require an independent sys-usb2 qube to use them, but I did not go past guessing… I never tried any.
(independent sys-usb2 to get isolation from other usb buses, although direct attachment to dom0 wiuld be OK if any other USB ports are made inactive. )
I think xen/qubes might be automatically hiding your PCI card, there are some relevant threads in this forum on how to unhide them, if someone could please link them here I believe they will help with this user’s situation
I can see the cards, they simply do not work. For example, the last one I purchased permitted the mouse to work on the keyboard PS/2 connector, but the mouse would not work on the mouse PS/2 connector (the keyboard never worked no matter how connected).
If you have used a PCIe PS/2 expansion card with success, can you please provide specific details so I may purchase one too?
Unfortunately not, this could be a kernel driver issue, try to find out which PS/2 card(one of the ones you own) has both keyboard and mouse support in the kernel and try to download and modprobe it if you can, I suggest you search the arch wiki first, try a live distro etc to see if the PS/2 works at all, worse case scenario you might have to compile your own kernel, in the case that you do need to compile your own kernel you will defiantly need the help of this repo
As far as I remember it has a script that patches any Linux kernel .config with the necessary requirements for the kernel to work in qubesos, I think (don’t remember) it has 2 scripts, one for domUs and one for dom0 but I might be misguiding you with this last assumption
I totally agree someone using these cards should answer here. But meanwhile, I would try the same cards on different OS, Linux and Windows. before any conclusion.
Also, I would try newer PS/2 keyboards.
Also it would help giving the exact keyboard model.
From a Qubes OS perspective the lack of any response stating a PCIe PS/2 expansion card has worked for them points to Qubes OS needing to recommend a separate PCIe USB expansion card dedicated to USB keyboard/mouse if another USB bus is unavailable on the motherboard instead of a PCIe PS/2 expansion card. Not the solution I wanted, but if it works…
I have multiple PS/2 keyboards, mice, and PCIe cards, so please no more speculating. What actually worked for someone? Anyone?
Well, it’s your fault. That’s not even mentioned until now. Not to say you didn’t clarify what exactly did you try, what the logs are saying, etc…
You just want that person that has it working.
I hope you’ll get it while I am fading out into 4DX popcorn armchair.
Sure sounds likevyou paid for the premium qubesos experience and are not getting your money’s worth, where can I get this paid plan that matches that attitude?
1st Post: If you have used a PCIe PS/2 card with success, can you provide specific details so I may purchase one too?
2nd Post: If you have used a PCIe PS/2 expansion card with success, can you please provide specific details so I may purchase one too?
3rd Post: What actually worked for someone? Anyone?
It’s easy to get off topic, but does anyone have a working PCIe PS/2 expansion card solution?
I’m sorry I think you misunderstanding something, Linux is always between stable and unstable, stacking xen on top of that is making things even more chaotic.
We have been trying to help you troubleshoot your sitsuation but you dont seem to be accepting any non-oneclick solutions, which for your case its probably something that requires debugging the situation.
We ARE running in blind since you provide no logs, no PCI card names, no nothing really.
Inappropriate remark
I gave you a possible path to a solution, like I said you are either missing drivers OR you have a problem with xen not allowing dom0 to access the PCI, WE ARE COMMUNITY MEMBERS NOT YOUR PERSONAL BOOTLICKING SUPPORT STAFF. Either help us help you or leave and complain on how bar qubesos is, either way I’m giving up with your attitude.
On another note the largest percentage of the Pareto user here are using laptops not computers so you are stack with the 20% of users, and then the 20% of that that actually use workstations and not laptops or both.
Next time you need help in any open source project try to be helpful to the people that are trying to assist you.
For practical suggestions, it would be helpful to show output of the following two commands, with the cards in the machine :
sudo lspci -nn- it gives the Vendor and device information
sudo lspci -nn- it gives the kernel drivers able to handle the devices.
The commands must be run in dom0 terminal.
There is a lot of extra information available, if you insert -vvv in the commands, even with more ‘v’ characters.
Only the part that is relating to the ps/2 cards is necessary.
This would allow us to see the controllers that are present on your cards, and the support that is in the kernel.
Firstly, I do appreciate those trying to help.
Secondly, please ignore the trolls.
Back to “firstly” . . . I didn’t want to go into details and kept my request as brief as possible hoping for a similarly simplistic response. When Qubes was originally rolled out an 8-bit controller, iirc, could be used on an ISA bus to create PS/2 ports for the keyboard and mouse. With the introduction of the PCIe bus I wondered if anyone would create a true PS/2 card given the tiny market and the time/money required. The PCIe “PS/2” cards I have tried, because I couldn’t get the tech specs, rely upon a USB chipset to emulate a PS/2 (and so did the ones I saw the specs on). From a Qubes perspective this provides no benefit.
The Qubes docs are quite good in explaining how to dedicate a separate USB controller for keyboard/mouse use (either on the motherboard or using add-in PCIe USB controller) and with PCIe this is the [only?] secure way to use a desktop PS/2 or USB keyboard or mouse (laptop keyboards & mouse don’t typically have this issue). I wondered if there was another solution, but they answer appears to be “no”.
Thanks again to those trying to help.
I will assume that you have a reason to avoid giving useful information…
I am not 100% sure of the following… to be sure, it is necessary to see the controller documentation…
If you can disable the general purpose USB ports of the card, then the mouse/kb ports, which are translated from PS/2 do not seem to give more risk than regular ps/2 ports. Usb connectors can be blocked with epoxy, or cut off.
They would give the only usable interface of the card, so the pcie device could be allowed access to dom0. The security would be the same as a dedicated kb/mouse USB controller, but with only PS2 interface, and no possibility to connect general purpose USB devices.
Short version is that PCIe USB PS/2 cards do not have separate PS/2 and USB functionality, so they can not be physically separated. EE focused circuit layouts are way outside the scope of CS focused Qubes, so I don’t want to bring it up any further.
If you are interested in more, I would recommend looking at schematics of PS/2 versus USB-PS/2 controllers; apples to pineapples. Here are a couple of quick items I found on the web. There are better sources if you’d like to look further.
https://wiki.osdev.org/I8042_PS/2_Controller
https://www.aslak.net/index.php/2020/05/15/a-ps-2-interface-and-pcb-routing-progress/
Thanks again.
Have you looked at chinese cards?
There is no mention about chip used but if you ask maybe they would tell