3.1+ kernels unbootable

3.1+ kernels unbootable

[Chris Jones]

I understand this mailing list is not a support list. But I am curious
as to what could make the Linux kernel non-bootable from 3.1+ kernels?

My 3.0 kernel boots just fine with my current system.


Regards

Chris Jones

Re: 3.1+ kernels unbootable

[NeilBrown]

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On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:49:25 +1000 Chris Jones <chrisjones@spin.net.au> wrote:

> I understand this mailing list is not a support list. But I am curious
> as to what could make the Linux kernel non-bootable from 3.1+ kernels?

A bug probably.

> 
> My 3.0 kernel boots just fine with my current system.

You might like to try 
 a/ describing your current system in more detail.
 b/ describe what actually happens when you try to boot a 3.1+ kernel.
    It is rare that absolutely nothing happens.
    Also describe the provenance of these 3.1+ kernels (do you compile
    yourself, or get them from a distro or....)

NeilBrown

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Re: 3.1+ kernels unbootable

[Chris Jones]

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:21:22 +1000
NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de> wrote:

> You might like to try 
>  a/ describing your current system in more detail.
>  b/ describe what actually happens when you try to boot a 3.1+ kernel.
>     It is rare that absolutely nothing happens.
>     Also describe the provenance of these 3.1+ kernels (do you compile
>     yourself, or get them from a distro or....)
> 
> NeilBrown


Thanks Neil. I use standard x86_64 Intel CPU system with 2.0GB DDRII
RAM on a Gigabyte GA-8VM800PMD-775-RH motherboard.

This happens on both Ubuntu and Fedora kernels. And in fact, any kernel
3.1 or above. It's not only very odd, but also very annoying.

I get to the boot screen and when I select ENTER to boot into the
system, my screen goes black and then the system reboots. It's
definitely a kernel issue as anything (as mentioned already) with
kernel 3.0 or below works just fine.


Regards

Chris Jones

Re: 3.1+ kernels unbootable

[NeilBrown]

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On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:20:01 +1000 Chris Jones <chrisjones@spin.net.au> wrote:

> On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:21:22 +1000
> NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de> wrote:
> 
> > You might like to try 
> >  a/ describing your current system in more detail.
> >  b/ describe what actually happens when you try to boot a 3.1+ kernel.
> >     It is rare that absolutely nothing happens.
> >     Also describe the provenance of these 3.1+ kernels (do you compile
> >     yourself, or get them from a distro or....)
> > 
> > NeilBrown
> 
> 
> Thanks Neil. I use standard x86_64 Intel CPU system with 2.0GB DDRII
> RAM on a Gigabyte GA-8VM800PMD-775-RH motherboard.
> 
> This happens on both Ubuntu and Fedora kernels. And in fact, any kernel
> 3.1 or above. It's not only very odd, but also very annoying.
> 
> I get to the boot screen and when I select ENTER to boot into the
> system, my screen goes black and then the system reboots. It's
> definitely a kernel issue as anything (as mentioned already) with
> kernel 3.0 or below works just fine.
> 

You have a couple of options here.

One is to use git-bisect to narrow down where the breakage is.  This means
building about a dozen or a score of kernels and testing each one and then
trying again.  If you are happy building your own kernels and have an
afternoon to spare this is probably a good idea.  There should be plenty of
instruction on the web about how to do this but if you cannot find any feel
free to ask.

The other is to try turning features off and debugging on.
Many distros have some sort of "fail-safe" boot option which disables things
like ACPI and known-problematic drivers... though with it failing so early
most drives won't have even tried to run.  I'd guess an ACPI problem, but
that is largely because I know almost nothing about ACPI so it is easy to
blame it.  So try adding "acpi=off" to the boot args.

Linux has a thing called 'early_printk' which allows messages to be displayed
even before the normal drivers are loaded.  I don't know much about enabling
that on an x86 system (I use it a lot on ARM though).  You need it enabled
when the kernel is compiled, and you need a boot arg to enable it too.  Maybe
if you manage to enable  that you might get some message printed.

Or maybe there is some other much more useful thing you can try and someone
else will chime in soon and tell me I don't know what I'm talking about and
explain in detail the right way so solve this problem - that would be awesome.

NeilBrown

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Re: 3.1+ kernels unbootable

[Bjorn Helgaas]

You might be seeing nothing because of the distro splash screen, so
you could try removing any boot options like "silent splash quiet
rhgb" and adding "debug ignore_loglevel" and maybe "vga=0xf07" (to get
more text on the screen).  If you learn anything that way, maybe you
could collect a dmesg log from the newest working kernel and a digital
photo of the broken one for comparison.

Bjorn

Re: 3.1+ kernels unbootable

[Chris Jones]

On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:44:52 +1000
NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de> wrote:

> 
> You have a couple of options here.
> 
> One is to use git-bisect to narrow down where the breakage is.  This
> means building about a dozen or a score of kernels and testing each
> one and then trying again.  If you are happy building your own
> kernels and have an afternoon to spare this is probably a good idea.
> There should be plenty of instruction on the web about how to do this
> but if you cannot find any feel free to ask.
> 
> The other is to try turning features off and debugging on.
> Many distros have some sort of "fail-safe" boot option which disables
> things like ACPI and known-problematic drivers... though with it
> failing so early most drives won't have even tried to run.  I'd guess
> an ACPI problem, but that is largely because I know almost nothing
> about ACPI so it is easy to blame it.  So try adding "acpi=off" to
> the boot args.
> 
> Linux has a thing called 'early_printk' which allows messages to be
> displayed even before the normal drivers are loaded.  I don't know
> much about enabling that on an x86 system (I use it a lot on ARM
> though).  You need it enabled when the kernel is compiled, and you
> need a boot arg to enable it too.  Maybe if you manage to enable
> that you might get some message printed.
> 
> Or maybe there is some other much more useful thing you can try and
> someone else will chime in soon and tell me I don't know what I'm
> talking about and explain in detail the right way so solve this
> problem - that would be awesome.
> 
> NeilBrown

I have tried all ACPI disabled options and also all safe-mode options,
among many other modes. Nothing has worked.

Now that Ubuntu 12.04 has gone gold, I might try the latest kernel in
that and see if anything has changed.

Thanks Neil.


Regards

Chris Jones

Re: 3.1+ kernels unbootable

[Bjorn Helgaas]

On Sat, Apr 28, 2012 at 8:21 PM, Chris Jones <chrisjones@spin.net.au> wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:44:52 +1000
> NeilBrown <neilb@suse.de> wrote:
>
>>
>> You have a couple of options here.
>>
>> One is to use git-bisect to narrow down where the breakage is.  This
>> means building about a dozen or a score of kernels and testing each
>> one and then trying again.  If you are happy building your own
>> kernels and have an afternoon to spare this is probably a good idea.
>> There should be plenty of instruction on the web about how to do this
>> but if you cannot find any feel free to ask.
>>
>> The other is to try turning features off and debugging on.
>> Many distros have some sort of "fail-safe" boot option which disables
>> things like ACPI and known-problematic drivers... though with it
>> failing so early most drives won't have even tried to run.  I'd guess
>> an ACPI problem, but that is largely because I know almost nothing
>> about ACPI so it is easy to blame it.  So try adding "acpi=off" to
>> the boot args.
>>
>> Linux has a thing called 'early_printk' which allows messages to be
>> displayed even before the normal drivers are loaded.  I don't know
>> much about enabling that on an x86 system (I use it a lot on ARM
>> though).  You need it enabled when the kernel is compiled, and you
>> need a boot arg to enable it too.  Maybe if you manage to enable
>> that you might get some message printed.
>>
>> Or maybe there is some other much more useful thing you can try and
>> someone else will chime in soon and tell me I don't know what I'm
>> talking about and explain in detail the right way so solve this
>> problem - that would be awesome.
>>
>> NeilBrown
>
> I have tried all ACPI disabled options and also all safe-mode options,
> among many other modes. Nothing has worked.
>
> Now that Ubuntu 12.04 has gone gold, I might try the latest kernel in
> that and see if anything has changed.

Any luck on this?

Bjorn