Wireless keyboard not detected until after GRUB

Support & Help Requests
,
#1

Hi All

I have a dual boot system. UM (16.10) and Windows 10 and I have recently started using a wireless keyboard and mouse. Both work perfectly once I am logged in, however, I needed to log into Windows earlier today and realised that the keyboard is not active at the point when GRUB menu is on the screen. This isn’t normally a problem as 99% of the time I use UM, but on this occasion I had to plug in a wired keyboard to get into Windows.

Like I say, once GRUB has auto selected my first choice (UM) it works fine at the login screen.

Do you know if there is anything I can do to help GRUB detect the wireless devices? I have a mini USB receiver plugged into a USB hub for the keyboard and mouse. I read in some other discussions that were generally about wireless devices, that there may be BIOS setting to change, but I’ve taken a look and could not find anything relevant.

Is it simply a timing issue? Can you delay the GRUB menu in a config file maybe so it doesn’t appear until after wireless devices have been detected?

Any suggestions would be great.

Cheers,
Martin

#2

Support for wireless devices is in the kernel (initramfs) that is loaded after it is selected in GRUB, so under normal circumstances there is no way a wireless device can work.

That said, you can look for “legacy USB support”, “USB keyboard” or something similar in BIOS and enable that. It should take care of the problem.

2 Likes
#3

Hi @Martin, I’m concerned about “wireless” even mentioned. Such USB receivers need no kernel wireless support, mostly for network cards, to present themselves as a USB keyboard device. The o/s doesn’t have to know if a keyboard is “wireless” or not. Same with a wireless mouse.

Some suggestions…

  1. Look for the “legacy support” as mentioned by @samuvuo.

  2. Try without that USB hub to see if it makes a difference. It adds some complexity for BIOS.

  3. Buggy BIOS’ and USB devices are not uncommon. I run into this all the time with some old boot-up products that rely on BIOS working and it can be a real pain. The problems get totally masked by most o/s’ but they are very real.

3 Likes
#4

Thanks, @samuvuo I understand. I did already look in my BIOS and didn’t see any entry like this, but I didn’t know what I was looking for so it could have passed me by. I shall look again.

#5

@Bill_MI Well it is often that the simplest ideas are the best! I took the receiver out of the hub, placed it directly in the case, shut down, powered on again and hey presto the keyboard worked inside of GRUB. Excellent. Many thanks for your reply and help.

2 Likes