no keyboard with 13.1 xfce

[gapan]

OK, so no modules are actually loaded. You're either using the wrong kernel, or the modules directory is empty for some reason. What is the output of uname -a?

Do you have another salix partition in the hard drive? You might have used that one to run lilo, so you may be using a 64bit kernel in a 32bit system for example.

[mimosa]

That's really weird. That machine has only one Salix, and XP. And Salix was working fine till the other day. I didn't fiddle with it as far as I remember, except to do a much overdue package upgrade. I have no 64-bit machines, and I wouldn't have done anything to the kernel anyway. That was strictly for fun, and I won't do it again till I actually have a good reason to

I'll check the output of uname later. When I do, do you think it'd also be worth running lilosetup from the Live USB? God knows how I did this, but Lilosetup might mend the damage.

[gapan]

You could. Or you could chroot to it and run liloconfig from the terminal. You could also try reinstalling the modules package.

[mimosa]

I decided to try reinstalling the kernel-modules package inside the chroot. I got a message that made me think it had failed, and (thinking it might be something to do with the limitations of chrooting) booted into the installation to reinstall the package from runlevel 3. But everything is already apparently working, even in X. Maybe I'll find something broken, in which case I'll post.

So I'm marking it solved, though it niggles that I don't understand what happened.

Maybe next time salix-update-notifier turns red, it will all break again.

EDIT Oh, and as requested, for the sake of completeness:

root[tim]# uname -a
Linux darkstar 2.6.37.6-smp #2 SMP Sat Apr 9 23:39:07 CDT 2011 i686 Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU 330 @ 1.60GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

That's the 13.37 kernel, not 13.1

[gapan]

All other packages that you showed in your listings show that it's a 13.37 installation, not a 13.1 one. So, I'm still not sure why this happened.

[mimosa]

About the kernel and version, I just meant it was careless of me to post this as a 13.1 problem. I think I replaced that installation with 13.37 a few months back.

Thank you both for your help. I'll post again if it breaks.