Availability of mechanical PS/2 keyboards is almost non-existant these days. Sadly my old IBM keyboards with the click and resistance, have long since bitten the dust. But I do have an excellent USB mechanical Hyper/X keyboard, which I’m very happy with. If I were to invest in a couple of USB to PS/2 adapter cables for my keyboard and mouse, would plugging them into the PS/2 desktop computer jacks make a new installation of Qubes recognize the keyboard and mouse as PS/2, with the resultant automatic addition of a sys-usb VM during the installation. I’m planning to reinstall my Qubes installation from scratch, once v4.1.1 is officially released and it would be nice if I didn’t need to manually make another sys-usb after installation. Thanks.
I am struggling myself with the same question. As far as I can tell, some USB keyboards will function properly, but I guess most modern keyboards will not (not sure this is correct though).
So… I guess I cant help at this time.
As far as I can tell, some (most?) older USB keyboards will work with PS/2 adapter, but newer probably not.
If there is anybody out there with some hardware knowlege, that can tell us more about the diferences between these two interfaces, maybe we could come up with some hardware modification (strictly USB keyboard modified for PS/2 keyboard.
Already did somme digging, but nothing useful came up for now.
Regards
I have used USB/PS2 adapters, and Qubes identified the keyboard as a
PS/2 device. Newer keyboards tend not to “speak” PS/2 - you can find
active converters for them, the old passive adapters wont work.
Thanks unman! I’m having a hard time finding one though. I did find a reference to a very suitable looking active adapter, but the Wikipedia page is in German and I cannot get it to show in English. Anybody speak German? I would prefer to ideally source an adapter from a North American or European manufacturer if possible.
Sorry, forgot to include the Wikipedia link:
You can use deepl.com to translate it. It’s a German company and the results are much better than google translate 
(a little-known google product alternative)
Thanks deeplow. I will give it a go. cheers
I’m afraid that route is fraught with problems. While translating with deepl.com I clicked on a word, which did open the wikimedia page in English. But using Qubes with Mullvad, I’m blocked from creating an account, for contacting the administrator (Czech I think), who posted the article about the device. Not 100% sure the adapter wasn’t home made anyway. Back to square one I’m afraid. I will continue my search for an active adapter. Some are available for male usb to female ps/2, but not it seems the other way around. Has anyone found a suitable source in the past, which I might follow up on? There must be more than just myself and qubicrm, who would find such a device very helpful. Thanks.
I believe I have found an active adapter, which might work. It’s a Tripp Lite 0DT60002 PS/2 to USB Converter. But it’s more than $100 to bring into Canada from the US. Before investing that kind of money, does anyone have any experience with these adapters in Qubes?
Look here, maybe useful:
did not explore too much myself.
Thanks cubicrm. Yes, I think that is more involved, than I would prefer as well. I will probably go the Tripp-Lite route, unless somebody knows of a similar, lower cost off-the-shelf solution.