> > - Is a keyboard necessary to boot ?
>
> No.

That answer should probably be changed to "it depends".  The BIOS
may not like proceeding with a boot without a keyboard; I've seen
error messages to the effect of "No keyboard present, press F2 to
continue", with no built-in timeout.  Duh!  (Admittedly, this was
with a somewhat old PC.)

- H=E5vard