Making the Realforce 87U work with USB 3.0 on Ubuntu

Posted Sep 27, 2020 Updated Jan 17, 2024

By Petar Kostić 3 min read

Note: Specifically for the Realforce 87U, this fix is now obsolete/irrelevant. The USB 3.0 Link Power Management is now disabled by default in the Linux kernel for the Realforce 87U. See my more recent post for more information. This post will be kept for reference, and to help people with similar issues for other keyboards.

Environment

OS: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS x86_64
Host: XPS 15 9570
Kernel: 5.4.0-33-generic
DE: GNOME

Problem behavior

The Realforce 87U does not work under Ubunu / Linux, but does work under Windows, Grub, or the BIOS on the machine.

$ dmesg | grep usb will probably give you something like this, where it will try to read the configuration a bunch of times for your port (in my case usb 1-2), before it gives up.

[    1.375845] usb 1-2: new full-speed USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd
[    1.525302] usb 1-2: unable to read config index 0 descriptor/start: -32
[    1.525304] usb 1-2: chopping to 0 config(s)
[    1.525305] usb 1-2: can't read configurations, error -32
[    1.652127] usb 1-2: new full-speed USB device number 4 using xhci_hcd
[    1.802977] usb 1-2: unable to read config index 0 descriptor/start: -32
[    1.802979] usb 1-2: chopping to 0 config(s)
[    1.802981] usb 1-2: can't read configurations, error -32
[    1.803021] usb usb1-port2: attempt power cycle
[    2.452227] usb 1-2: new full-speed USB device number 5 using xhci_hcd
[    2.475648] usb 1-2: unable to read config index 0 descriptor/start: -32
[    2.475650] usb 1-2: chopping to 0 config(s)
[    2.475653] usb 1-2: can't read configurations, error -32
[    2.604235] usb 1-2: new full-speed USB device number 6 using xhci_hcd
[    2.628059] usb 1-2: unable to read config index 0 descriptor/start: -32
[    2.628061] usb 1-2: chopping to 0 config(s)
[    2.628062] usb 1-2: can't read configurations, error -32
[    2.628101] usb usb1-port2: unable to enumerate USB device

This happened to me on USB ports that are of version 3.0. Users have reported that the keyboard will work when using a USB 2.0 hub.

Solution

I’ve found that turning off my laptop, unplugging the keyboard, booting into Ubuntu and plugging the keyboard in again did nothing for me. What did change something, however, is that unplugging and plugging in the keyboard a couple of times will cause this message to show op in dmesg

[  264.151488] usb usb1-port2: attempt power cycle

After this, The product and manufacturer are properly identified, along with the device ids

[  264.801787] usb 1-2: new full-speed USB device number 12 using xhci_hcd
[  264.825063] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0853, idProduct=0111, bcdDevice= 0.01
[  264.825068] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[  264.825071] usb 1-2: Product: Realforce 87
[  264.825074] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: Topre Corporation
[  264.828792] input: Topre Corporation Realforce 87 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb1/1-2/1 2:1.0/0003:0853:0111.0004/input/input31
[  264.889528] hid-generic 0003:0853:0111.0004: input,hidraw3: USB HID v1.11 Keyboard [Topre Corporation Realforce 87] on usb-0000:00:14.0-2/input0

Having this information allows us to pass usbcore as a kernelparameter using usbcore.quirks, and set the proper values for USB 2.0

More specifically, the following options

g for USB_QUIRK_DELAY_INIT (device needs a pause during initialization, after we read the device descriptor);
k for USB_QUIRK_NO_LPM (device can’t handle Link Power Management);
i for USB_QUIRK_DEVICE_QUALIFIER (device can’t handle device_qualifier descriptor requests)

With the kernel parameter being

usbcore.quirks=<idVendor>:<idProduct>:<option><option><option>...

For me, dmesg | grep "usb 1-2" lists

[  264.825063] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0853, idProduct=0111, bcdDevice= 0.01

So the kernel parameter I added was

usbcore.quirks=0853:0111:gki

Testing

Reboot into grub and add your kernel parameters by hitting e and appending it under linux
Hit Ctrl+X to exit emacs and boot
Test your keyboard, typing dmesg | grep usb again after booting to see if the issue with the keyboard is resolved

Making the changes permanent

sudo open /etc/default/grub with your favorite editor.

Add the parameter to the very end.

  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet slash mem_sleep_default=deep ... usbcore.quirks=0853:0111:gki"

Update grub’s configuration with sudo update-grub
Reboot

References

Keyboards

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.