Roger Murtaugh: I’m too old for this bleep !
The following are the issues (some are still at large):

Package changes:

• acpid: Does not use /proc/acpi/event. Instead uses netlink to get events. So new kernel needs new acpid.
• xargs: There was an old problem with xargs getting huge command lines (was fixed many months ago). I still had the old version.

Kernel:

• RTC vanished: The module rtc-cmos is needed and nodes /dev/rtc -> /dev/rtc0 needed (major  = 253).
• Nvidia: Just like previously downloaded the package from nvidia. Should work without problem.
• Keyboard: Okay this needs another paragraph.

Keyboard issues: Ironically I thought of upgrading the kernel to get the “Microsoft Natural® Ergonomic 4000” working with all those special buttons. The pain started like this:

After configuring X display and first run – black screen nothing happens. Well actually there is no crash. Incidentally the black screen was just Nvidia’s idea of a default surface for X (Instead of my favorite X crosshatch pattern). The non-response is due to new X not using hal for some reason to get te mouse and keyboard. HAL is working fine lists all the devices (even the other half of  “Microsoft Natural® Ergonomic 4000” with the fancy buttons) – X just does not get it. Currently X is set to use the ‘kbd’ driver and evdev mouse (yeah, funny – hal supposed to suggest ‘evdev’ for both keyboard and mouse).

Getting to use the keyboard in some is a relief after which surfaces minor problems that have crept in. The remapping of CapsLock to Control in console is gone (apparently the sed scrpt /etc/kbd/remap is not working and resulting in some funny symbol like “keycode 58 = CtrlL_Lock”) – Left it at that for now – not much console usage once X is working.

Keyboard issue did not stop. A good one came in. I see that the shell pipe lines I make lose space after the ‘|’ i.e (ls /foo |grep bar). This was due to overlap of ‘Right shift’ while the ‘|’ and space keys are hit – so Shift-Space gives no space. After googling and starting of with info from http:/pascal.tsu.ru/en/xkb/setup.html, ended up in base.lst file. This file describes an option called nbsp:none which when enabled causes any level of modified space key appears as space. I’m sure this has broken something else somwhere – I’ll wait for it.