The machine boots, mounts the file-system (will even do the e2fsck).
As soon as I log in (which works), and do:
# cd /etc
# ls
I have done this several times. It is repeatable. If I do anything
that makes the 'bell' sound, or if the machine is idle for more
than a few seconds, it will halt foerver.
The machine will hang. No interrupt activity whatsoever. Looking at
IRQ0 (timer-tick) on the bus shows it permanently high. Perhaps these
old machines can't use level-triggered interrupts. It worked with
an old version of Linux for several years. It still worked before I
installed 2.1.42. The old version was 0.99 (Yaggdrasl). Now I am
gonna be in trouble with the owner (an executive).
I will probably have to give him a "new" motherboard with a '486-DX/66
to get him off my back (I have a old spare).
This is the configuration.
CONFIG_MODULES=y
CONFIG_MATH_EMULATION=y
CONFIG_NET=y
CONFIG_SYSVIPC=y
CONFIG_SYSCTL=y
CONFIG_BINFMT_AOUT=y
CONFIG_BINFMT_ELF=y
CONFIG_M386=y
CONFIG_VIDEO_SELECT=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_FD=y
CONFIG_NET_ALIAS=y
CONFIG_INET=y
CONFIG_PATH_MTU_DISCOVERY=y
CONFIG_IP_NOSR=y
CONFIG_SKB_LARGE=y
CONFIG_SCSI=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=y
CONFIG_CHR_DEV_ST=y
CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SR=y
CONFIG_SCSI_AHA1542=y
CONFIG_NETDEVICES=y
CONFIG_NET_ETHERNET=y
CONFIG_NET_VENDOR_3COM=y
CONFIG_EL2=y
CONFIG_EL3=y
CONFIG_PPP=y
CONFIG_EXT2_FS=y
CONFIG_FAT_FS=y
CONFIG_MSDOS_FS=y
CONFIG_VFAT_FS=y
CONFIG_PROC_FS=y
CONFIG_NFS_FS=y
CONFIG_NFSD=y
CONFIG_SUNRPC=y
CONFIG_LOCKD=y
CONFIG_ISO9660_FS=y
CONFIG_VT=y
CONFIG_VT_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_SERIAL=y
I would suggest that support for '386s be disabled sometime soon, i.e.,
disable math emulation so that folks don't think that their old clunkers
will work with the new kernels.
Cheers,
DJ
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Richard B. Johnson
Analogic Corporation
Email : rjohnson@analogic.com, johnson@analogic.com
Penguin : Linux version 2.1.42 on an i586 machine (66.15 BogoMips).
Warning : It's hard to stay on the trailing edge of technology.
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