I have a PS/2 adaptor with a retro mouse and keyboard connected and Debian 12 is doing something different when it is booted up with or without that plugged into a USB port.

Either way, the keyboard and mouse work perfectly, however plugging it in after bootup does not cause this "symptom" to appear whereas if it is plugged into the USB port while the computer is switched off then the computer is booted, the symptom appears.

The symptom is visible in the gui of the power tray icon.

If booted up without the PS/2 connected it looks like this :

If booted up with the PS/2 connected it looks like this :

It's not the colour of those message boxes, that's just the camera used to take the picture. It's that booting up with that USB plugged in shows a screen brightness adjuster as well as a keyboard backlight adjuster whereas booting up without that plugged in shows only the screen brightness.

The keyboard backlight thing does not work anyway, but this change in the gui depending on what is plugged in upon bootup suggests that something is different, and I believe that that "something" is having side effects and I would like to know what it is.

I'd like to enter a command to write a file upon bootup with and without that plugged in then take the diff of the 2 files.

Does anyone know the most appropriate command to generate such a file which would most likely contain in it somewhere whatever is causing this? The 2 files need to be easy to take a diff, so if they are full of time stamps it would make that hard as every line will be different due to the time stamp. It's just going to be unpleasant to try to sift through such large log files manually to try and find what is different.

I have a PS/2 adaptor with a retro mouse and keyboard connected and Debian 12 is doing something different when it is booted up with or without that plugged into a USB port.

Either way, the keyboard and mouse work perfectly, however plugging it in after bootup does not cause this "symptom" to appear whereas if it is plugged into the USB port while the computer is switched off then the computer is booted, the symptom appears.

The symptom is visible in the gui of the power tray icon.

If booted up without the PS/2 connected it looks like this :

If booted up with the PS/2 connected it looks like this :

It's not the colour of those message boxes, that's just the camera used to take the picture. It's that booting up with that USB plugged in shows a screen brightness adjuster as well as a keyboard backlight adjuster whereas booting up without that plugged in shows only the screen brightness.

The keyboard backlight thing does not work anyway, but this change in the gui depending on what is plugged in upon bootup suggests that something is different, and I believe that that "something" is having side effects and I would like to know what it is.

I'd like to enter a command to write a file upon bootup with and without that plugged in then take the diff of the 2 files.

What is the most appropriate command to generate such a file which would most likely contain in it somewhere whatever is causing this? The 2 files need to be easy to take a diff, so if they are full of time stamps it would make that hard as every line will be different due to the time stamp. It's just going to be unpleasant to try to sift through such large log files manually to try and find what is different.