newbie to fedora and suffering keyboard problems

[Alan]

> Both the basic X-less server installs of Ubuntu worked and also with X,
> 
> functioning as a desktop system. Knoppix just does its thang without any
> intervention.
> 
> Hope that helps some...?

Later kernels broke one or two boxes keyboard/mouse detection this way
(particularly if I remember boxes with PS/2 keyboard and USB mouse).
There are some boot options to adjust the way the keyboard and mouse is
probed that may help in some cases:

At the grub message about "Booting ... in  seconds" hit a key, select the
kernel you want, edit the boot line as per the directions and you can
play with the following options one at a time

i8042.noaux  (if you have no PS/2 mouse this may help)
i8042.nomux (usually fixes stuff)
i8042.nopnp (probably not relevant for most PCs)
i8042.unlock (if the keyboard won't let you type but this is usually
weird laptop specific)

Alan