Problem

I brought a new Dell Vostro 1520 laptop with no OS installed. While installing the Ubuntu 9.0.4 ,the keyboard is not working at all, this is a showstopper for the installation process. The Ubuntu can not detect my Dell vostro 1520 keyboard.

Solution

1. Pre Installation Not working

During the Ubuntu installation main screen, do not press “enter” or choose any option, press “F6″ to choose “other option” (your keyboard is still able to type), and you will notice a long boot option is available for you to modify. Choose “Install Ubuntu”, modify the boot opotion and press enter.

Original

file://xxxxx quiet splash --

Change it to

file://xxxxx quiet splash i8042.reset i8042.nomux i8042.nopnp i8042.noloop

2. Post Installation Not working

After installed the Ubuntu, you may notice few reboot time is required for the Keyboard to work properly. Some post configuration need to be done in this file /boot/grub/menu.lst.

mkyong@mkyong-laptop:$ sudo vim /boot/grub/menu.lst

Append the “i8042.reset i8042.nomux i8042.nopnp i8042.noloop” to the end of the kernal line

## ## End Default Options ##
 
title           Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic
uuid            a064dfdb-19a8-4369-831a-8c6a47eaba30
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=a064dfdb-19a8-4369-831a-8c6a47eaba30 ro quiet splash i8042.reset i8042.nomux i8042.nopnp i8042.noloop
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic
quiet
 
title           Ubuntu 9.04, kernel 2.6.28-11-generic (recovery mode)
uuid            a064dfdb-19a8-4369-831a-8c6a47eaba30
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-11-generic root=UUID=a064dfdb-19a8-4369-831a-8c6a47eaba30 ro  single
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-11-generic
 
title           Ubuntu 9.04, memtest86+
uuid            a064dfdb-19a8-4369-831a-8c6a47eaba30
kernel          /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet
 
### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

Reference

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1185349

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