I'm a little confused by the mouse part... does this mean you DID install the system and the system doesn't work? The installation medium has no GUI and thus no mouse support.

Is it X that is unresponsive after an install?

I do not get to install the system at all. When I'm referring to the mouse I mean that (like all new mouses) it has an LED underneath and it is always ON but as soon as the system freezes the keyboard becomes unresponsive and the mouse LED turns off. In other words, there is a luck up of all the peripherals. Sorry if my first description was confusing.

Again, I do not get to install X or anything for that matter. The system boots with the CD and goes up to the menus. I select the top option, and after a few seconds I'm presented with a screen where I have to "become" root in order to continue but I cannot since I cannot use the keyboard.

I hope the explanation is better this time.

Hmmm, can you try messing with the kernel params (hit 'e' at the grub menu)? Try adding one or both of "noapic" and "acpi=off"

With keyboard, do you mean onboard or external (usb) ?

@ Dieter Plaetinck ,
By keyboard I mean external USB... and BTW the mouse is also USB

Is it possible you could get the ehci error for us?

Maybe try a ps2 keyboard and run "dmesg" in the booted system?
Or, alternatively, hit "e" on the grub line and add disablemodules=ehci_hcd

Aaron,

I did try with a pci keyboard but did not work, exactly the same problem.
I'm currently trying with an older version 2007.08 and it goes fine. I realize that there will be a lot of differences to get that system up to date with such an old version. If that proves to be too much of a pain I'll try messing with the kernel.
I would have done that already if it would not be that I did not get your message until after I started this new try.
I'll keep you posted.

OK. I think it may be a kernel problem.
I just finished installing from ARCH-ISO 2007.08. Installation was fine and everything worked until I did a pacman -Syu. Among other things the kernel was upgraded, of course, and upon reboot the system failed to detect the keyboard that had been working just fine up to that point. In essence the same problem.
I'll try messing with the kernel parameters.

Why do these things happen with I have work up to my ears? :-(

OK. I'm glad to report that adding "noapic" does the trick. The system boots and installs fine.
BTW I like the new installer. Very nice job guys!!

Thanks for all the help.

R.

Aaron, do we have a "kernel faq/documentation/tips/.." somewhere where we could add stuff like this?

Update:
The addition to the kerenel line that I mentioned earlier worked fine during the install process but ... as soon as I started X I lost the keyboard and mouse again!
The solution was to download and run hal. It seems that hal will take care of the peripherals in an xorg session. I hope these little things will be of help to someone else.

That issue is actually documented in the Xorg hotplugging wiki page, and the front page news - dunno if X outputs this somewhere/somehow though.

Regarding noapic, no we don't have this documented yet, but we could add a help page for it

@ralvez: So you have to use noapic as a fix kernel parameter for your installed system too - or only during the installation?
You should check your BIOS and try changes there on ACPI/apic settings if you have these options. Also you should look if there are BIOS-Updates for your Laptop and maybe give them a try.
Is this parameter also needed for the latest 2.6.28-ARCH kernel?

Well, he had it (also) on the 2009.02 iso so that's 2.6.28-ARCH :)
edit: oops, did you mean the latest revision of 2.6.28-ARCH ?

@Gerhard,

I did use noapic in the kernel options during install, that's correct, that gets us a working installation. Once the machine goes to X it will loose the mouse and keyboard again and the solution is to add hal to the daemons line in /etc/rc.conf.
and ... yes, the settings in the BIOS are enabled to support USB keboard in both fast usb and the "older" format. As per the BIOS updates this is a brand new desktop system from Acer and after the "fixes" seems to be working just fine, so at this stage I'm not terribly concerned with updates to the BIOS. ;-)

Does the latest iteration of the ISO need the "fix"? I do not know the machine was for a friend of mine and it's out of my hands now.

Well, it's hard to "fix" as adding noapic by default can cause issues as well. I think we just need this documented

@ralvez: The keyboard+mouse "problem" is normal (and independent) from the boot problem. What i meant on noapic is: Yes, you must have add this parameter to _boot_ the install cd, but must you use this kernelparameter also _after_ installation? And after you updated your system to the latest kernel26 update? Reason for my question: ISO kernel is AFAIR 2.6.28-4, currently we have 2.6.28-7. My question is more a "private" question of interessed cause i know that often quirks are no more needed after some kernel(patch)-releases.

BIOS-Update: I knew many "new" PCs which come with an very old BIOS ;-) I don't say: make an update, but it's a good hint to look _if_ the vendor offers a newer version. So it's possible that errors were maybe fixed...

Back to topic: Yes, we should offer a (short) hint page/file with usual kernel parameters (and other boot options which could be changed). Most usual (IMHO) were: acpi=off, noapic, nolapic and some of the pci= options. But also my experience: If one needs such a parameter it comes mostly from old/buggy BIOS, misconfiguration in BIOS or exotic hardware.

I would like to close this report. Anything against it?

yes, this can be closed imho. after the noapic trick is documented somewhere. :)

Documented the noapic and acpi=off trick in a new wiki page called "Installation_Troubleshooting". Figured that since the point of error may not be consistent, didn't fall into the Beginner's Guide format. Linked to it from the Beginner's Guide.

fair enough. Thanks majiq.
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Installation_Troubleshooting