Among my seven computers, there is an older one with legacy BIOS, still running Leap 15.6 - I thus cannot upgrade it to 16.0 (neither with the excellent opensuse-migration-tool). I thought of installing another Linux system for older PCs, but I cannot either boot from a USB stick, nor even change to one of the GRUB start-up options, because my PS2 keyboard is totally ineffective until the login screen appears, and before that, any button I press has no effect at all. I cannot enter my BIOS either to change boot order. I tried all buttons, F2 and F10 and F11 and F12 and Esc and Del and Shift, I tried other keyboards, I tried lots of suggestions, but everything failed. Isn’t there a way to force a reboot-from-USB, like Windows has?
Try to borrow a USB keyboard from a friend for a day or two to see if this works better?
Thanks, Stefan, but I tried several of my USB keyboards too, nothing works. This PC seems condemned for eternity to stay in Leap 15.6. I can see the content of the Q4OS Andromeda stick I wanted to install, I even copied the whole thing to my hard drive, but nothing works. In Yast Bootloader I changed boot order, did not work. In Yast Partitioner I wanted to make the stick (sdb) root partition, was not possible, and make it boot partition was not possible. That damn keyboard is just not connected before the login screen … I could perhaps set Bootloader on “no bootloader” in Yast, disabling grub2, but I’m afraid that is not very wise.
You can upgrade Leap to Tumbleweed using zypper.
Possibly a BIOS reset via either motherboard jumper or temporary CMOS battery removal would clear the problem with keyboard.
Thanks mrmazda! I will try zypper to install TW in April, when support for Leap 15.6 stops. As for the suggestion to open up my PC and to toy with the CMOS button, I was already afraid someone would suggest it - I will not do that, for fear of very probably doing some idiot things. And I hope that TW will be possible, because Agama AND opensuse-migration-tool told me that this older PC does not meet the requirements for Leap 16.0 …
Simply removing the CMOS battery while PSU is disconnected from power source does just as good as using the jumper, just takes some extra seconds, but is typically idiot-proof, removable with wood or plastic toothpick if not just plain fingers. In most it’s a common 3V CR2032 coin cell.
In case of extreme need, I’ll have to do it, I suppose. Thanks anyway for your aid. I understand that there is no way at all in Linux to tell the PC to reboot-from-usb, like Windows is apparently capable of (I wouldn’t know myself because I haven’t touched any Microsoft product sincs 25 years - I’m a SUSE user since 2001 now, and not regretting it one moment).
With a PC old enough to be disqualified for 16.0 installation, you may be needing a battery replacement before long anyway.
In that case, I’ll ask the local PC shop, which is very good at it, to do the job.
One last item: HOW and WHEN did this happen? Well, two weeks ago I was still able to start from USB, and that was the AGAMA installer for Leap 16.0. After some short calculations, it gave me the message that my PC was not eligible for Leap 16.0 - and that was it, there was no “quit” or “restart” button. So I had to close the whole thing, in the right corner above, and restart my PC. Since then, BIOS is unreachable. Has that AGAMA installer in some way “monopolized” my BIOS? I don’t know …
No. There is no way that it could have done this.
Before you speculate any further, just get a CR-2032 battery from your local supermarket (1-2 EUR), open your computer’s case, find that battery on the main board, remove it and replace it with the fresh one. It’s really not rocket science. There are probably a dozen videos on YouTube how to do it.
Those batteries last some 5-6 years, then they need to be replaced, and your PC’s CMOS RAM might contain random garbage and lead to crazy effects like those that you are experiencing.