netboot / nfsroot problems

netboot / nfsroot problems

[Knut Petersen]

Hi Hans Peter,

You asked Carlos Carvalho and me if we care to try

    git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/hpa/linux-2.6-klibc.git

Netbooting does work for me now without any problems, please see

    http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0601.3/2128.html and
    http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0601.3/2322.html

Some time after the last msg netboot stoped to work again, reenabling pio
for the 8139 solved that problem again.

At that time I thought I found an 8139too bug, but the report of Carlos 
shows
that I might have been wrong. Two possibilities remain:

-   Both the 8139 and the Intel NIC drivers are broken in a way that 
allows them
    to work reliably in normal operation, but that prevents them to receive
    ip packets during ip autoconfig.

-   Some code that both these cards use during ip autoconfig is broken.

Netbooting a VIA rhine system worked without any problems, it worked
with _exactly_ the same setups that failed for 8139too.

Do you still believe that our problems could be solved by the code in 
your git
tree? I would have to install git here first, but I will do it if necessary.

I asked Carlos to try to boot with the netconsole code enabled as this 
changes
the nic init and thus _could_ help, unfortunately I received no answer 
up to now.

cu,
 Knut