no mouse or keyboard

[savanahrose]

Hey all, I am quite a newbie. just trying to learn something different and get away from windows.
I tried using knoppix 5.0 from a live dvd and it came up but my mouse and keyboard did not work.

Any ideas on why this happened and what I can do to fix the problem?
My computer is about 6 years old if that helps.
As for the other info i don't have it on me. I am at work while typing this.

[xxqq]

Can you try older Knoppix such as 3.X or 4.X?

What is the brand / type of your PC, keyboard and mouse?

Do you use USB, serial, PS/2 keyboard/mouse or something else?

Try to boot into terminal/console mode:
Knoppix 2

try the following command:
dmesg | grep -i kb
dmesg | grep -i keyb
dmesg | grep -i mouse
dmesg | grep -i ps2

What is the result?

Have you try cheat codes?

wheelmouse
The mouse is a wheelmouse - not needed since 2003-04-15

nowheelmouse
Regular PS/2 mouse - 2003-04-15 and after.

noapic noagp noapm nodma nomce nofirewire nopcmcia noscsi noswap nousb nosmp noaudio
Skip parts of Hardware-detection, In case of a failing hardware autodetection, try booting with any of the "no-" options as shown in the table above, like in knoppix noagp noapm noapic nodma nopcmcia noscsi nousb to skip some critical parts of the autodetection system. The "noswap" option is useful for a forensic analysis without touching existing swap partitions.

nohwsetup
Skip hardware detection (does not run hwsetup)

pci=biosirq
Will force the use of the BIOS assigned Interrupt ReQuests on the PCI bus. Possible cure for non-functioning hardware. Very handy for unruly IRQ conflicts. Look at dmesg and cat /proc/pci to find out if you have any such troubles..

pci=irqmask=0x0e98
Notebook if PS/2 mouse doesn't work, Try "knoppix pci=irqmask=0x0e98" if (you have a notebook and) your PS/2 mouse doesn't work. (Possibly caused by a BIOS-flaw on your board.)

acpi=off
Disable ACPI Bios completely

-b
"Emergency Mode", a quick-n-dirty boot, almost no HW detection, only 1 VT; hit enter at root-password prompt and start typing commands. Good if you just need to fdisk IDE devices, activate a different partition for booting, DD stuff, and you are planning on rebooting Real Fast after you're done. You can actually Alt-SysRQ-B safely ie. immediate reboot w/o worrying about shutting down nicely or anything, because nothing is mounted r/w at ALL - not even swap. Also works on other Linux distros.

[RHCA]

Hey try with another mouse maybe if your mouse and keyboard are wireless or use usb it will not boot