[TriLUG] compaq presario, suse, and usb support

[joel]

I have been running suse 8.2 on a compaq presario 7000 for, I don't know, at 
least 2-3 years. I think it's time to update it even though 8.2 has performed 
flawlessly. I have had only one problem which suse support couldn't help me 
fix. The problem was usb support. Outside of 8.2 being somewhat dated I have 
recently purchased a HP PSC 1350 v printer which, of course, uses usb to 
connect. I have messed around trying to get the printer to work with 8.2 but 
it appears that the printer is not  being recognized by the OS. The problem 
suse support couldn't fix was a compaq usb keyboard not being recognized. I 
got around that by getting a non-usb keyboard. I dual boot the compaq and 
everything works as advertised on the windows side so I would assume that 
hardware is not the problem. I tried a knoppix cd but it appears that knoppix 
has the same problem as suse. Before I blast 8.2 away with 9.3 I thought I 
would see if anyone knew about this problem and could suggest a fix. Instead 
of including alot of info which may or may not be of use to someone I thought 
I would post the question, see if anyone was interested, and respond with any 
information they required. 

Thanks in advance
Joel