Re: bad pmd filemap.c, oops; 2.4.30 and 2.4.32

[Roberto Nibali <ratz@drugphish.ch>]

>>> The machine was /not/ booted into that config.  It is running the 
>>> original config from 
>>> http://hashbrown.cts.ucla.edu/pub/oops-200512/config-2.4.32 with 
>>> DEBUG_SLAB defined and "pci=noacpi" passed in on the command line.
>>>
>>> The config with HIGHIO disabled an ACPI=y has not been tested.

CONFIG_SMP at least sets CONFIG_ACPI_BOOT. Do you still have the boot 
messages somewhere (dmesg)? I'd be interested in the difference between 
IOAPIC PCI routing entries between pci=noacpi and normal boot.

>> Thanks for the precision. So logically we should expect it to break 
>> sooner or later ?
> 
> It is the same .config as one that crashed before, except that it has 
> DEBUG_SLAB defined.  If it does not crash, then adding pci=noacpi to the 
> command fixes the problem for me.

Hmm, I'm not fully convinced yet, however glad that it has been a bit 
more stable for you.

Sidenote: We boot our systems having built-in AIC7* SCSI on moderately 
cheap motherboards with "bad" interrupt routing using pci=noacpi on 
2.4.x kernels to evade instability.

I suggest that if you experience more problems using this setup _and_ 
would like to continue debugging the issue, we take this off-list into a 
private discussion.

[Another thing which would be interesting to test regarding the HIGHIO 
setting is a RedHat based 2.4.x kernel, since according to some SCSI 
driver's documentation, RedHat had a different HIGHIO convention.]

Thanks for your feedback,
Roberto Nibali, ratz
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