[jacobstoner]

I'm running xbmc on Debian Lenny. It compiled fine, but when I run XBMC the keyboard doesn't work. It doesn't do anything. There are no clues in the log file. The mouse works fine, but no keyboard. The keyboard works fine in mythtv, so I know it's app specific. I thought something may have gone wrong during compilation, so I uninstalled my binary and installed the binary for Ubunu Hardy Heron, it installed fine, but again there is the keyboard issue. Am I missing something? I'm just stumped. I don't have a window manager installed, does that matter? Any ideas will be greatly appreciated. In my opinion XBMC is the most impressive open source project, not backed by a major corporation. XBMC rocks!

[gilgongo]

When you say "no clues" in the log file - are there no key events reported at all?

This may be due to the fact you have no windows manager running. I recall somebody posted instructions here recently for getting XBMC running on a minimal machine without X - perhaps they explain how to do it?

[althekiller]

@jacobstoner, if you're going to all this trouble to do a stripped setup you either need to do the research on your own to figure out your problems or give us as much DETAILED info about your setup as possible. We can't just guess at what you've done.

[jacobstoner]

There are no key events reported at all in the log. I'll try to be more detailed. I put together a media center computer for my living room. I am trying to setup a minimalist install. I've done this many times with MythTv, but XBMC blows myth away when it comes to playing stored content. I installed installed a lenny base system with the cd, then I compiled a new kernel, used the nvidia driver installer, installed xorg and xserver-xorg. Then I followed the instructions for compiling in XBMC in Hardy Heron, they worked great in Lenny. I created a user to run xmbc and put "xbmc" into /home/user/.xinitrc. Then using startx I launched the xserver and xbmc loads right up, without keyboard support. I even watched some videos after navigating with the mouse, and I must say I am impressed with the progress of XBMC on linux. Does anyone know of something from the window manager that's required. Perhaps there is something that is gnome/kde dependent for keyboard support? I plan to automate the launch of the xserver so I can just turn on the computer and have xbmc load right up.

[althekiller]

SDL handles the keyboard and many people (including myself) have run xbmc in the manner you describe w/o problems. Can you try to start another app and see if the keyboard works?

[gilgongo]

I'd start by seeing if you can get some info on what's getting to the X server in terms of key events from the keyboard, although it's odd that XBMC isn't seeing anything at all.

Try installing xkeycaps (it's an X app), which will show you what keys are being recognised.

Oh, and what kind of keyboard are you using (USB? iR? other?)

[jmarshall]

Try installing something else that uses SDL for keypresses perhaps.

[jacobstoner]

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll look into SDL a bit more. The problem occurs with both PS/2 and USB keyboards. The keyboards work fine in in mythfrontend, which is installed in the same manner. Does SDL also interact with the mouse, because that works fine. Perhaps I'll just give in and try it with a minimal ubuntu install.

[jacobstoner]

I tried xkeycaps and it works as it should

[jacobstoner]

If anyone is interested I found the problem--sort of. I installed a minimal ubuntu and xbmc worked fine, so then I set it up just like I had it on on debian, with mythfrontend installed as well. My .xinitrc launched mythfrontend first then xbmc. To my surprise the keyboard stopped working. I reproduced the error and found some insight. The problem is due to some sort of conflict between mythfrontend and xbmc. I uninstalled mythfrontend and xbmc started working fine. Strangely when I reinstalled mythfrontend, xbmc continued to work fine.. strange. I still prefer debian for many reasons, but this install works great, so I'm happy.