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Diagnostics needed for Raspberry pi

e14 Contributor

I have been experiencing issues with the mouse on my Pi. Now it could be the power supply issue, or the USB issue, or the firmware, or a driver issue, or it could be the mouse i'm using (although i have tried three different ones)

What would be really useful would be a simple to use set of diagnostic routines that would enable new users to check the pi step by step.

This would need to be simple, after all, the RPi concept is to encourage new users to take some first steps into programming. A lot of the advice I've seen so far seems to assume a good level of expertise already in the user.

Parents

  • I can't guarantee I can solve your problem, but for starters could you provide the following information?

     

    1. What brand and model number is the mouse?

     

    2. Is the mouse  wireless or wired USB?

     

    3. Does the mouse work satisfactorily on a PC?

     

    4. Are you using the USB ports on the Pi or via a hub, if a hub is it a powered one?

     

    5. Are you getting to a logon prompt?

     

    6. What brand of power supply are you using and what does it state its' ratings are?

     

    7. Which OS are you using?

     

    If the mouse is a bluetooth type then it could well be a driver problem in which case you might see a 'Kernel Panic' or other error message as the OS is booting.

  • in reply to bodgy

    Thanks for the reply Bodgy, here is my response to your questions,

     

    The mouse is an optical wired mouse, and it has worked on other pc's

    I have tried using the ports on the pi and also through a powered hub

    I get the login prompt, I can login using the keyboard and can type commands ok

    the power supply is one I have for my HTC phone and is rated 5 volts at 1 amp.

    I am using the Debian squeeze distribution

     

    When I type startx, i get the Graphical user interface and the mouse pointer is in the centre of the screen. The mouse does not work, and so I cannot then do anything in the GUI. I don't know whether the keyboard can be used in this interface at all (like windows)? So at this point I have to pull the power to reboot.

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    This looks to be the same problem as described in this thread:

    http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=7574

     

    probably a Debian issue.

     

    It seems there are several things that fail on Debian but work on Fedora,

    and vice versa.

Reply Children
  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    Thanks for the link. I will try some of the suggestions.

    By the way, I looked on the Rpi download site and there is no distribution for Fedora. Where can I get this?

    Cheers,  Geoff

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    The fedora 14 version was pulled, but a very preliminary

    version of fedora 17 can be found here:

       http://scotland.proximity.on.ca/arm-nightlies/vault/

     

    This version is apparently still quite unstable, and is

    a hybrid of fedora 14 and fedora 17.  Seneca is

    planning to release an updated image Real Soon Now,

    See their latest minutes here:

     

    http://www.element14.com/community/message/53204#53204/l/re-seneca-laments-lack-of-boards

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    I have been helping people on irc who have lost keyboard and mouse after startx.

     

    The problem mainly occurs because X windows requires the evdev kernel module to handle mouse and keyboard input and the systems I have encountered have not been correctly updated so this module cannot be loaded. Some people have been updating their Pi's boot partition, including updating the kernel, without also updating the kernel modules which reside on the root partition. This kind of makes sense as people working from a Windows or Mac generally don't have access to the linux root filesystem and also some people don't have their Pi connected to a network connection.

     

    The easiest fix is to connect the Pi to a network and fetch and run the rpi-update script, which can install modules which match a kernel and update a system database by running the depmod command. Some people have done otherwise correct manual updates but not known about the sudo depmod step which would enable the drivers to load.

     

    The problem is nothing to do with Debian but lack of kernel and firmware packaging does force people to use a non-distribution update method like rpi-update or just bodge things. I expect two things will happen to improve matters. First the frequency of updates will slow once the drivers are stabilised. Second all distributions will be able to seamlessly update the kernel and firmware as part of the normal package upgrade system. I think Arch already does this. Packaging is in the works for Debian and Raspbian but rpi-update does a pretty good job for the moment. https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    Since my keyboard/mouse don't work, how do I navigate to the github location to obtain the rpg-update tool?  My pi goes to the startx GUI automatically after reboot.  At that point the mouse and keyboard do not respond.  The mouse icon is frozen in the middle of the screen.  I also have no Ethernet configured but can plug it in. 

     

    Sorry, I am new to this.  Just started up my pi today.  It worked for a few hours then this issue appeared.

     

    Any help would be appreciated.

     

    Thanks

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    If you get a serial UART to USB adapter like this one (pay attention on how to connect it) you can always have access to the serial console via a terminal emulator on your PC such as Teraterm.

     

    To be able to run rpi-update will need to get it and then install git:

     

    - sudo wget http://goo.gl/1BOfJ -O /usr/bin/rpi-update && sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/rpi-update

    - sudo apt-get install git-core

     

    I'd always recommend that before you run rpi-update do a quick update of the packages local cache and get the available upgrades doing:

     

    - sudo apt-get update

    - sudo apt-get upgrade

     

    And then you do rpi-update, after which you will have to reboot the board ...

     

    Depending on the project or on what I'm working on, most of the time I've my Rpi's "headless", meaning no mouse, keyboard, monitor, just connected on the local network and running tightvnc on the Rpi and a VNC viewer on a desktop, it works really well.

     

    Cheers

    Jorge

  • in reply to e14 Contributor

    robhardw wrote:

     

    Since my keyboard/mouse don't work, how do I navigate to the github location to obtain the rpg-update tool?  My pi goes to the startx GUI automatically after reboot.  At that point the mouse and keyboard do not respond.  The mouse icon is frozen in the middle of the screen.  I also have no Ethernet configured but can plug it in. 

     

    Sorry, I am new to this.  Just started up my pi today.  It worked for a few hours then this issue appeared.

     

    Any help would be appreciated.

     

    Thanks

    There are useful suggestions for this sort of problem at the RasPi Troubleshooting Wiki.

     

    Someone reported a similar problem here at element14 last November.  There might be some useful suggestions in that discussion.  I think the most likely culprit is a corrupted SD card or bad polyfuse F3, but there are plenty of other possibilities.