Keyboard Failure - but still working.

[jfish1936]

Scenario: a Celeron 2G, 512M Ram, dual-booting Win 98 and Ubuntu 7 via GRUB.
It always has started with aGRUB screen, to choose Win or Ubuntu.

Now, the keyboard does not respond to allow this choice.
Ubuntu boots after 30 seconds, and from there everything runs normally, i.e. the keyboard works.
We're waiting for the root user to come home and use his password to reprogram GRUB, which will either leave us stuck in Windoze, or, worse, get into Win with no keyboard -- then how to get back to GRUB and set Ubuntu as default again?

[jfish1936]

For the dozens of readers who are waiting to hear more

An old keyboard was found in a shed. The dust and mouse wee were cleaned off it, and it was attached to this computer.

1/. It worked perfectly! no startup difficulties!

2/. The first keyboard went to another machine; it worked perfectly there!

Conclusion: some keyboards and computers develop personal animosities; grand-daughter points out this is described in Diane Duane's "Young Wizards" book series.