After downloading windows before, it, of course, became the default OS, and so in trying to recover my linux installation, the NixOS installer won't launch (due to the problem above).

it doesn't give an error, it just says 'starting systemd udevd' and then hangs for a long time. It becomes completely unresponsive and I have to unplug it to get it working.

In windows, no, the external keyboard works regardless.

No, that's with the keyboard disconnected and the external connected.

When keyborad is connected, linux launches fine and has usb errors, and the external works as well.

Well Windows, the default OS, works normally with the external keyboard (even though one usb port doesn't work with keyboards, works with anything else though).

However, Linux doesn't get past starting systemd.

Oh yea, I have completely disconnected the battery, the problem still persists. This becomes especially a problem with distros that have menu in the bootloader because the keyboard will only work in the bootloader then stop working in the os itself.

Do you mean disabling the linux warnings? I mean even if I can, it doesn't solve the problem does it.

Yep, this is a very very common problem.

I do use an external keyboard for this computer but on linux, the usb errors cause kernel panic, and I'm sure I could find a way to disable that input but I have no idea.

The laptop is no longer under warranty, but this doesn't seem to be a hardware issue as the keyboard works perfectly on first start up. I have tried reseating the keyboard to the main board, but I haven't removed the mainboard itself, and I can't tell if there's any pinch points since the cable runs all the way behind the board, but the end looks clean.

For the record, disabling Always on USB hasn't worked.

No, however there are a couple other settings that are concerning:

• Always On USB [Enabled] : The USB ports can charge external device during low power states.
• Charge in Battery Mode [Enabled]: Enable or disable chargin external device when system is in hibernate or power-off state and in batter mode.
• Fool Proof Fn Ctrl [Enabled]
• DPTF [Enabled]
• Slow Slew Rate for IA Domain [Enabled]