Re: [SSI-users] setup of OpenSSI 1.9.6 with Debian Sarge with a very old hardware

[Alceu R. de F. J. <gla...@ya...>]

Hello Scott,

I commented your e-mail below:

Scott Walters escreveu:
> 
> Since the screen goes black and doesn't give you a chance to read the
> messages, you should set up a serial console.  Add
> "console=ttyS0,9600" to the kernel parameters for the bootloader and
> turn off getty for ttys0 in /etc/inittab (comment the line out, if it
> isn't already).  Plug another computer in to the first serial port
> with a null modem cable or adapter, fire up a terminal program, and
> set it to keep a log.

Ok, I did that. But I still didn't get anything.

The last words I got from trying to boot the SSI kernel is "boot". Just 
before that, just the lines from the configuration done in GRUB:

Booting command-list

root (hd0,0)
  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vmlinuz02.6.11-ssi-686-smp root=/dev/hda1 ro console=ttyS0,9600
     [Linux-bzImage, setup=0x1600, size=0x2546ef]
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.11-ssi-686-smp
     [Linux-initrd @ 0x5a55000, 0x19a36f bytes]
savedefault
boot

Then I tried the same parameters with Debian Sarge vanilla kernel, and 
it just worked. I just had to put 9600 instead of 16500 (which I did use 
when trying to connect to the machine by using the null modem cable and 
got a working prompt after that). I do have the output from it, but it's 
218 lines length and I don't if it's interesting to post it here. Please 
let me know if I should do it.

After that, I went out compiling the vanilla Debian kernel source 
(2.6.8) just changing the processor type to "Genuine Intel" and putting 
the EXT3 in the kernel instead of using a module. After that, I 
installed the kernel, executed a boot with it and got the same error 
that I got with another box that uses a AMD Sempron processor:

VFS: Cannot open root device "hda1" or unknown block(0,0)
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS

This was exactly the same error I got with the Sempron machine.

Finally, I did another test: installed Debian Sarge by the same way 
described BUT did not installed anything related to OpenSSI, neither 
used the OpenSSI repository for packages.

Then I just download the source for kernel 2.6.8 and did the same 
configuration, compiled the kernel and it boot with any problem.

> Perhaps you want to do that on the 686 class machine, not the 586 class machine.

I'll do it, just to provide more information about the setup process.

> Looking at /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.14-ssi/.config, CONFIG_M686=y is
> uncommented, but CONFIG_M586MMX and on down are commented out/not set.
>  Perhaps I modified my copy of this file and didn't remember that fact
> though.

I really don't know if this is bug in the OpenSSI kernel, but I would 
test any modification you could provide regarding that.

I did these errors during my last setup with OpenSSI packages:

cpio: initrd/lib/libcluster.so.0 not created: newer or same age version 
exists
cpio: initrd/lib/tls/libc.so.6 not created: newer or same age version exists
cpio: ./dev/cciss: No such file or directory
cpio: ./dev/ida: No such file or directory
cpio: ./dev/ide: No such file or directory
cpio: ./dev/mapper: No such file or directory
cpio: ./dev/scsi: No such file or directory

I did notice that there is a kernel-ssi-image-2.6.11-386 package in the 
OpenSSI repository, but that is a problem with dependency of another 
package (kernel-image) which is not available in the repository.

Do you think it would be valid to try to compile the OpenSSI kernel 
source, just changing the processor type?

Thanks in advance,
Alceu