Re: Linux kernel 3.18 and above does not boot on PC164

[Michael Cree <mcree@orcon.net.nz>]

On Tue, Mar 01, 2016 at 08:08:28PM +0100, JB wrote:
> i compiled the latest 3.14.62 kernel for my PC164 EV56 alpha system. This works without any failures since kernel 3.6.4 and above.
> Unfortunately i cannot get the linux kernel 3.18 and above to boot (the latest try today was a 4.4.3 Kernel).
> 
> The last entries on the screen are:
> 
> ###############################################
> aboot: Linux/Alpha SRM bootloader version 1.0_pre20040408
> aboot: switching to OSF/1 PALcode version 1.23
> aboot: booting from device 'IDE 0 11 0 1 1 0 0'
> aboot: valid disklabel found: 4 partitions.
> aboot: loading compressed vmlinux-4.4.3.gz...
> aboot: PHDR 0 vaddr 0xfffffc0001010000 offset 0x2000 size 0xebe3b8
> aboot: bss at 0xfffffc0001ece3b8, size 0x179540
> aboot: zero-filling 1545536 bytes at 0xfffffc0001ece3b8
> aboot: starting kernel vmlinux-4.4.3.gz with arguments ro root=/dev/sda4
> 
> halted CPU 0
> 
> halt code = 6
> double error halt
> PC = fffffc00010324e4
> boot failure
> ###############################################
> 
> Did i miss a new mandatory kernel config option for alpha or am i the only one with this behaviour ?
> Hope you can help me a bit ...

This has also been noted for the debian-ports built generic kernel,
for kernel versions 4.3 and above.  They fail to boot with symptoms
exactly as shown above.

There is some speculation on the debian-alpha mail list that only
a kernel built for generic system is failing to boot.  I have not
been able to confirm that.

I managed to build a 4.3 dp264 variant kernel which boots okay on an
XP1000, but my attempts to build a 4.3 or 4.4 titan variant kernel
is failing with relocation errors such as:

arch/alpha/kernel/built-in.o: In function `osf_filldir':
arch/alpha/kernel/osf_sys.o:(.text+0x278c): relocation truncated to fit: BRSGP against symbol `__copy_user' defined in .text section in arch/alpha/lib/lib.a(ev6-copy_user.o)

so I have not got very far with exploring the problem.

Cheers
Michael.