kernel 2.4.* hangs just after uncompressing image

kernel 2.4.* hangs just after uncompressing image

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Greetings,
I'm currently running kernel 2.2.19 fine, and I'd need to upgrade to 2.4 
shortly, but after a careful configuration when i try to boot it hangs just 
after the message "Ok, booting kernel .."

As far as i know the problem verifies with each version of the 2.4 kernel, 
and i think that it is an hardware problem.

I'm not able to trace the operations because part of the startup code is in 
assembly.
The cpu is a Pentium Celeron 166 with 32Mb of RAM.
If you can address me about what may cause the problem i can be more 
detailed about that.

Any hint will be appreciated

-John

Re: kernel 2.4.* hangs just after uncompressing image

[Doug McNaught]

Johnny Mnemonic <johnny@themnemonic.org> writes:

> Greetings,
> I'm currently running kernel 2.2.19 fine, and I'd need to upgrade to 2.4
> shortly, but after a careful configuration when i try to boot it hangs just
> after the message "Ok, booting kernel .."

Are you perhaps compiling for a higher version of the CPU?  EG
compiling for P6 but booting on a P5?

> The cpu is a Pentium Celeron 166 with 32Mb of RAM.

Check your "CPU type" setting--I think it defaults to P6.

-Doug
-- 
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be born,
Come in, she said, I'll give you shelter from the storm.    -Dylan

Re: kernel 2.4.* hangs just after uncompressing image

[José Luis Domingo López]

On Saturday, 15 September 2001, at 23:39:57 +0200,
Johnny Mnemonic wrote:

> 
> Greetings,
> I'm currently running kernel 2.2.19 fine, and I'd need to upgrade to 2.4 
> shortly, but after a careful configuration when i try to boot it hangs just 
> after the message "Ok, booting kernel .."
> 
There has been a similar problem here with an old Pentium 166 over an
equally old mobo and RAM. Some kernels tend to stop the normal boot
process just after displaying "Loading linux........." on the screen.
Sometimes it arrives to the point where even the final "....done." is
printed, but the boot process either halts or reboots.

There is no deterministic pattern for such behavior: for example, 2.2.17
always boots OK. 2.2.18 sometimes fails to boot, rebooting itself when
fails. 2.2.19 nearly always fails to boot, but in this case it halts
instead of rebooting. The same 2.2.19 kernel on a floppy boots a much
higher percentage of times.

With kernels 2.4.x, all I've tried show a similar behavior to that
experienced with 2.2.19. With 2.4.9 even triying to boot from a kernel on
a floppy is hard, because this also fails aprox. 75% of times.

But using 2.4.9-ac10 those booting problems disappear completely: I get
100% success booting from both floppy and the hard drive.

All kernels compiled with the same options turned on, except framebuffer
only present on 2.4.x kernels.

The RAM seems OK (memtest86), as well as the HD (no problems so far),
although I still think is a (crappy or old) hardware issue. But it
happened to be interesting to see that 2.4.9-ac10 booted fine where
vanilla 2.4.9 failed.

-- 
José Luis Domingo López
Linux Registered User #189436     Debian GNU/Linux Potato (P166 64 MB RAM)
 
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