Keyboard freeze, Wireless Weirdness

[Chris Elston]

I'm running Severn on a Dell Inspiron 8100.  To get it to even work, I had 
to disable ACPI, which may or may not be contributing to my problems.  
Everything else is normal, even installed all packages during the 
preliminary install.

My first problem occurs semi-randomly.  While running X, my keyboard will 
stop responding.  Everything else seems fine, the keyboard just stops 
working.  I can't go to a virtual desktop (no keyboard), can't use any 
system config tools (asks for root password) or anything, so I'm forced to 
completely reboot.  Doesn't seem to matter what window manager I'm using 
as this problem has occured in both Gnome/Metacity and WindowMaker.

My other problem has to do w/ my wireless connection.  I have my network 
configured to access a secure network via a ESSID.  However, there is also 
a neighboring network that isn't restricted that overlaps.  When I boot my 
laptop, it grabs the open network and not the specific network I have it 
configured for.  If I restart the network (/sbin/service network restart), 
it grabs the correct network.  What is it doing differently at boot than 
when I manually restart the network?

In a perhaps related situation, my wireless connection will randomly 
disconnect which then forces me to restart it over and over again.  Not 
fun.

Any ideas on these problems?

PS: Where can I find good information on ACPI (what, why, how, etc)?  
Sorry if I'm out of the loop.

Chris Elston
celston at corky.sapien.net