Re: 2.6.38.3 and 2.6.39-rc4 hangs after "Booting the kernel" on quad Pentium Pro system

From: Chris Samuel
Date: Fri Apr 22 2011 - 20:20:41 EST


Hi Ingo,

On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 11:46:48 PM Ingo Molnar wrote:

> Have you tried the earlyprintk=vga boot parameter yet? Maybe that
> shows more than just a silent hang ...

Thanks for that, just responded to Alan's email mentioning the
same option - I'd not come stumbled across it before. It reveals
the cause is the kernel misdetecting the amount of LOWMEM as 16MB
and, I suspect, is the same issue as I had an offlist conversation
with H. Peter Anvin with in 2008 which tailed off due to work
pressure on his part. There are more details in my response to Alan.

> Other than that, do you have some other box where you can build
> bzImages for this system in reasonable time? If yes then you
> might be able to bisect to the commit that broke it.

I can indeed, I'm lucky enough to be able to build that image
in about 4 minutes on my production desktop. Is that still of
use given that there's now a better view of what's going on ?

All the best,
Chris
--
Chris Samuel : http://www.csamuel.org/ : Melbourne, VIC

This email may come with a PGP signature as a file. Do not panic.
For more info see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPGP

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.