[gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Jay Maynard]

In my neverending quest to set up at least one running system with
Gentoo/Alpha, I've gotten a Takara (DMCC PICMG 21164/500) fixed and running.
The LiveCDs, both 1.4-test1 and 1.4RC1-test4, refuse to boot on it. The
kernel panics, claiming a kernel paging error. I can boot the Debian 3.0r2
install CD on the box, but it doesn't have enough smarts to install Gentoo:
I can get the networking running fine, and (after un-bzipping the stage
tarball elsewhere) have the hard disk initialized and loaded, but I can't
bind-mount /dev (which is required, since no devfs), and chroot complains
"FATAL: kernel too old". The Debian install CD uses a 2.2.20 kernel.

Now what do I do? Am I going to have to do something really kludgey like
build my own LiveCD with whichever option is missing that keeps the current
one from booting on Takara?...or, worse, have to patch it first?

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RE: [gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Donsbach, Jeff]

Hi all,

Time to come out of the closet so to speak. I've been fiddling with
Gentoo on my XLT (XL366).
I was having some moderate success with the 1.4rc1 stage1 but it
encountered some build errors along the way. Q: Is there a log file
where all the output of "emerge sync" goes?

So, then I poked around and saw that the 1.4 experimental stages were a
bit newer, so, I decided to try those. I didn't get as far. I also got
the "FATAL: kernel too old" error when I tried to do a "chroot" . Oh by
the way, I am currently running RH 6.2 with a 2.2.19 kernel (yes, old I
know).

So, it would seem there is something incompatible with the Stage1/LiveCD
and a running 2.2 kernel.
What would folks recommend using for a kernel to boot from instead?

I had one other problem with the 1.4rc1 install in that I couldn't do a
"mount --bind" . It said the operation wasn't supported by the kernel
(or something to that effect). How important is that? I just skipped it.

Looking forward to a running Gentoo system...
Jeff D


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Re: [gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Marc Giger]

Hi,

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 08:08:19 -0600
Jay Maynard <jmaynard@conmicro.cx> wrote:

> In my neverending quest to set up at least one running system with
> Gentoo/Alpha, I've gotten a Takara (DMCC PICMG 21164/500) fixed and
> running. The LiveCDs, both 1.4-test1 and 1.4RC1-test4, refuse to boot
> on it. The kernel panics, claiming a kernel paging error. I can boot
> the Debian 3.0r2 install CD on the box, but it doesn't have enough
> smarts to install Gentoo: I can get the networking running fine, and
> (after un-bzipping the stage tarball elsewhere) have the hard disk
> initialized and loaded, but I can't bind-mount /dev (which is
> required, since no devfs), and chroot complains"FATAL: kernel too
> old". The Debian install CD uses a 2.2.20 kernel.
> 
> Now what do I do? Am I going to have to do something really kludgey
> like build my own LiveCD with whichever option is missing that keeps
> the current one from booting on Takara?...or, worse, have to patch it
> first?

As you already noticed, you need a 2.4 kernel to be able to do a
"mount -o bind".

I remember that I had problems with the newer Gentoo-Live CD's. Search
for the oldest one (1.4-test1 should be ok).

To the paging error:

We can't help because you provided to less informations. Where occures
the problem? What was the last message?

If you are able to identify the subsystem where it panics, try to
disable the subsystem with boot parameters.
The Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt in the kernel-source-tree gives
you some insight in the options.

greets

Marc

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Re: [gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Marc Giger]

Hi,

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 10:27:17 -0500
"Donsbach, Jeff" <jeff.donsbach@hp.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Time to come out of the closet so to speak. I've been fiddling with

:-)

> Gentoo on my XLT (XL366).
> I was having some moderate success with the 1.4rc1 stage1 but it
> encountered some build errors along the way. Q: Is there a log file
> where all the output of "emerge sync" goes?
AFAIK not. Why not redirect the ouptut?

> 
> So, then I poked around and saw that the 1.4 experimental stages were
> a bit newer, so, I decided to try those. I didn't get as far. I also
> got the "FATAL: kernel too old" error when I tried to do a "chroot" .
> Oh by the way, I am currently running RH 6.2 with a 2.2.19 kernel
> (yes, old I know).
> 
> So, it would seem there is something incompatible with the
> Stage1/LiveCD and a running 2.2 kernel.
> What would folks recommend using for a kernel to boot from instead?
2.4.x. The LiveCD's boots from a 2.4 kernel.

> 
> I had one other problem with the 1.4rc1 install in that I couldn't do
> a"mount --bind" . It said the operation wasn't supported by the kernel
> (or something to that effect). How important is that? I just skipped
> it.
mount -o bind doesn't work with a 2.2 kernel. 

Why don't you boot from the LiveCD? Problems too?

greets

Marc

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RE: [gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Donsbach, Jeff]

> Why don't you boot from the LiveCD? Problems too?

> greets

> Marc

Didn't try it. The Stage1 tarball was a smaller download. ;-)

I'll try the LiveCD and see what happens. Which one is better to try at
this point; RC1 or "Experimental"?


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Re: [gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Marc Giger]

On Tue, 10 Feb 2004 11:57:46 -0500
"Donsbach, Jeff" <jeff.donsbach@hp.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> > Why don't you boot from the LiveCD? Problems too?
> 
> > greets
> 
> > Marc
> 
> Didn't try it. The Stage1 tarball was a smaller download. ;-)
> 
> I'll try the LiveCD and see what happens. Which one is better to try
> at this point; RC1 or "Experimental"?

definitively RC1. (I had some troubles with the newer ones in the
past).

greets

Marc

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Re: [gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Tavis Ormandy]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 05:07:40PM +0100, Marc Giger wrote:
> As you already noticed, you need a 2.4 kernel to be able to do a
> "mount -o bind".

I dont think this step is essential to get a working system, but it is
advisable (some configure scripts use information from /proc, but they
usually have sane defaults). 

I think you can get around this by using mount -t proc proc
/mnt/gentoo/proc, it doesnt make any difference which one you use,
except the latter should be supported on older kernels. I should update 
the guide :)

-- 
-------------------------------------
taviso@sdf.lonestar.org | finger me for my gpg key.
-------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Jay Maynard]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 01:27:50PM +0000, Tavis Ormandy wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 05:07:40PM +0100, Marc Giger wrote:
> > As you already noticed, you need a 2.4 kernel to be able to do a
> > "mount -o bind".
> I dont think this step is essential to get a working system, but it is
> advisable (some configure scripts use information from /proc, but they
> usually have sane defaults). 

The "mount -o bind" was what I ran across when trying to run off of a Debian
install CD. That effort foundered on "kernel too old" when trying to chroot.
Note that a bind-mount is necessary for /dev in such an instance.
> 
> I think you can get around this by using mount -t proc proc
> /mnt/gentoo/proc, it doesnt make any difference which one you use,
> except the latter should be supported on older kernels. I should update 
> the guide :)

The guide already says to do that for /mnt/gentoo/proc.

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Re: [gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Marc Giger]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:27:50 +0000
Tavis Ormandy <taviso@gentoo.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 05:07:40PM +0100, Marc Giger wrote:
> > As you already noticed, you need a 2.4 kernel to be able to do a
> > "mount -o bind".
> 
> I dont think this step is essential to get a working system, but it is
> advisable (some configure scripts use information from /proc, but they
> usually have sane defaults). 

Agreed. I referred only to the error message and not to the
installation. I should have mentioned what you wrote:

> 
> I think you can get around this by using mount -t proc proc
> /mnt/gentoo/proc, it doesnt make any difference which one you use,
> except the latter should be supported on older kernels. I should
> update the guide :)

Yep, you should:-)

Perhaps, the following should be in the doc. What do you think?

What's about the installation on a new harddisk without a bsd disklabel?

Software RAID with disklabels (autodetection, kernel-params etc.)
Currently I run this configuration and can provide some infos if wanted.

greets

Marc

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Re: [gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Marc Giger]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 07:38:42 -0600
Jay Maynard <jmaynard@conmicro.cx> wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 01:27:50PM +0000, Tavis Ormandy wrote:
> > On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 05:07:40PM +0100, Marc Giger wrote:
> > > As you already noticed, you need a 2.4 kernel to be able to do a
> > > "mount -o bind".
> > I dont think this step is essential to get a working system, but it
> > is advisable (some configure scripts use information from /proc, but
> > they usually have sane defaults). 
> 
> The "mount -o bind" was what I ran across when trying to run off of a
> Debian install CD. That effort foundered on "kernel too old" when
> trying to chroot. Note that a bind-mount is necessary for /dev in such
> an instance.

Next time I should read the whole thread again before answering.
/dev is the problem not /proc :-)

Why not just cp -a /dev/* /mnt/gentoo/dev/ ? Never tried myself but I
think it should work for installing gentoo.

What's about the paging error? Do you have more infos or gave up?:-)

greets

Marc

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Re: [gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Jay Maynard]

On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 03:28:11PM +0100, Marc Giger wrote:
> Why not just cp -a /dev/* /mnt/gentoo/dev/ ? Never tried myself but I
> think it should work for installing gentoo.

I did that. That's what got me far enough to get the "fatal: kernel too old"
error.

> What's about the paging error? Do you have more infos or gave up?:-)

It appears to be a problem either in the vector the SRM firmware hands the
kernel, or else a problem in the kernel itself: the takara_swizzle routine
is trying to dereference a null pointer. This is, as you might guess,
specific to takara. Unfortunately, I had to give back the memory I borrowed
to get that machine running, and haven't purchased more yet - and have since
gotten my AS 1000A 5/333 running again (and have a 5/500 CPU board on the
way), so that project has been pushed to the back burner.

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RE: [gentoo-alpha] LiveCD refuses to boot on Takara

[Donsbach, Jeff]

Well, I got past my "kernel too old" problem.

As a refresher, I was trying to install from an already running RH 6.2
system running a 2.2.19 kernel. When attempting to "chroot", I was
getting a "kernel too old" error message.

I ended up going to kernel.org and grabbing and building the latest
2.4.25 . Rebooting using that with the rest of the current Red Hat
install went without a hitch (well mostly, but nothing to do with the
new kernel).

Went through unpacking Stage1 and chrooting . Bootstrapping Stage1 went
fine. I'm in the middle of the Stage2 "emerge system" right now. Should
be done by the time I get home tonight ready to configure the kernel.

Jeff D

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