Re: [5/6] 2.6.21-rc2: known regressions

Bill Davidsen
2007-03-05T16:16:45Z

Ingo Molnar wrote:
> * Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de> wrote:
>
>> Subject : i386: no boot with nmi_watchdog=1 (clockevents)
>> References : http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/2/21/208
>> Submitter : Daniel Walker <dwalker@mvista.com>
>> Caused-By : Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
>> commit e9e2cdb412412326c4827fc78ba27f410d837e6e
>> Handled-By : Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
>> Status : problem is being debugged
>
> FYI, this is not a "wont boot" problem, this should be a "NMI watchdog
> does not work" problem - which has far lower severity. Also, Thomas did
> a fix for this which is now in -mm.
>
If a system normally runs a watchdog, and some do, then nmi would be
forced on by grub.comf and the system would not boot. And if the system
was counting on nmi to look for a hanging problem, "nmi does not work"
would be a real problem if the failure was silent.

Actually, a lack of nmi would be worse than not booting, it would be a
time bomb waiting for a bad moment to hang.

--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot