(XPS13) reinstalling keyboard support from recovery mode

Question

I accidentally removed libinput while trying to revert to synaptics on Ubuntu on my XPS 13 9350), so the keyboard constantly sends returns making it impossible to use the desktop.

In the recovery mode, I guess I could reinstall libinput, but I cannot get my wlan to work.

I already configured wpa_supplicant and try getting the network interface up using wpa_supplicant -B -iwlp58s0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -Dwext but this results in an error ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument which I cannot find a solution for.

Is there a way I can just get my keyboard working without internet access, and if not, what am I doing wrong for getting wlan back up?

Answer 1

I found out that the reason the keyboard was sending return keystrokes was because I used the virtual keyboard on the login screen to enter my password and I had used the virtual return button to log in. There is apparently a bug in this which will continue sending return keystrokes even after the virtual keyboard has disappeared.

I logged in a second time, used the Ubuntu virtual keyboard to install the openssh-server and then ssh'd in from another computer to reinstall libinput. All good now, except that the touchpad still behaves strangely and I hope I'll never need WiFi from the recovery console because I wouldn't know how to set it up.