Re: 2.5.56 won't boot (but 2.5.53 will)

[David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>]

Update:  this problem is still in 2.5.57 and 2.5.58 kernels.

But I have some more info.  At least with 2.5.58, the system
seems actually to be booting ... the problem is that the
console output (permedia2, of course without pm2fb) doesn't
work any more.  The machine remains just as unusable (for most
of my purposes) as if it actually weren't booting.

That is, I can "ssh" into the machine.  Or even type at
the console, log in, "startx" ... X11 comes up and is
usable, but if I exit and try to use the console normally
it's completely hopeless.  Input, but no output.

The particular location of the "console isn't working any
more" problem seems likely to be the precise point where
the console would have to scroll the text that's already
been printed during boot (starting from Grub).

Got any suggestions about how to un-break the console?

- Dave


> Symptom:  system hangs during boot, right where it's shown in the
> annotated log below.  On 2.5.56 I also tried after disabling SMP
> and all the local APIC stuff in the build, but it didn't matter.
> These are otherwise the same .config setups, modulo whatever
> magic "make oldconfig" did.
> 
> In case it matters, this is kt333-based with a vt8235 south bridge.
> It's never shown this type of boot problem before.
> 
> Suggestions, or patches?
> 
> - Dave
> 
> 
> Linux version 2.5.53 (root@helium) (gcc version 2.96 20000731 (Red Hat 
> Linux 7.3 2.96-110)) #10 SMP Fri Jan 3 11:47:10 PST 2003
> Video mode to be used for restore is f00
> BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
>  BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
>  BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
>  BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
>  BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 0000000020000000 (usable)
>  BIOS-e820: 00000000fec00000 - 00000000fec01000 (reserved)
>  BIOS-e820: 00000000fee00000 - 00000000fee01000 (reserved)
>  BIOS-e820: 00000000ffff0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
> 512MB LOWMEM available.
> found SMP MP-table at 000f50e0
> hm, page 000f5000 reserved twice.
> hm, page 000f6000 reserved twice.
> hm, page 000f1000 reserved twice.
> hm, page 000f2000 reserved twice.
>     
>     right here is where 2.5.56 (and 2.5.54) stops booting:
>     before messages about zone allocations.  Alt-SysRQ-B works.
> 
> On node 0 totalpages: 131072
>   DMA zone: 4096 pages, LIFO batch:1
>   Normal zone: 126976 pages, LIFO batch:16
>   HighMem zone: 0 pages, LIFO batch:1
> Intel MultiProcessor Specification v1.4
>     Virtual Wire compatibility mode.
> OEM ID: OEM00000 Product ID: PROD00000000 APIC at: 0xFEE00000
> Processor #0 6:6 APIC version 17
> I/O APIC #2 Version 17 at 0xFEC00000.
> Enabling APIC mode:  Flat.  Using 1 I/O APICs
> Processors: 1
> Building zonelist for node : 0
> Kernel command line: ro root=/dev/hda9 nmi_watchdog=1
> Initializing CPU#0
> Detected 1532.634 MHz processor.
> Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
> Calibrating delay loop... 3014.65 BogoMIPS
> Memory: 515688k/524288k available (1508k kernel code, 7864k reserved, 
> 725k data, 112k init, 0k highmem)
> 
>