If like myself you have upgraded to the latest version of Ubuntu, you may have also noticed that the keyboard and mouse do not work, you have to bang the mouse or press keys down several times for them to work.

I've found a work around for now and have posted this on the Ubuntu forum.

If you have a zombie process running then you need to 'kill it' ( for this you will need a command-line terminal ), below is the command line code you need to do this. Until Ubuntu is upgraded or someone else finds a permanent fix, you will have to do this each time you start your machine.

kill -HUP `ps -A -ostat,ppid,pid,cmd | grep -e '^[Zz]' | awk '{print $2}'`

Ubuntu 11.04 Mouse and Keyboard Fix

Second line down far right hand side, you will see a number followed by the word zombie, if the number is '0' this is NOT the problem you are having, if any other number appears there then this will work for you.

How to use this code:

Copy the full line of code from above

Open a command-line terminal, I use an add-on called 'Guake terminal'

To copy into the command line you need to use 'control ( Ctrl )' + 'shift ( the up arrow )' and 'v' at the same time, when you see the code on the line just press enter.

The zombie process has been killed, after a reboot your mouse and keyboard will now function correctly.