[gentoo-dev] Gentoo 1.0 install CD (stage2/stage3) kernel panic(?) from PCMCIA

[gentoo-dev] Gentoo 1.0 install CD (stage2/stage3) kernel panic(?) from PCMCIA

[John Matthews]

I have successfully bootstrapped a Gentoo 1.0_rc6 system in the past,
and the PCMCIA stuff for that install CD worked great.

I am rebuilding system using Gentoo 1.0 install CD (going straight to
stage 3, having backed up /etc to a safe place, and then nuked all old
Gentoo install). The install looks about the same except that it detects
a SCSI subsystem that the 1.0_rc6 CD didn't find. Then if I insmod (or
modprobe) pcmcia_core I get what appears to be a kernel panic.

I lose control of the system and page after page of numbers (looks like
addresses, whatnot) go streaming by. I cannot stop it to see what they
are and I cannot capture the data.

Laptop is a Compaq Armada 1700. (I don't think this has anything to do
with the cards. Same result when no cards inserted.)

I have gotten system mostly working now. I didn't do any network stuff
and just installed the stage 3 tarball and other housekeeping. Then
rebooted using 1.0_rc6 CD. Enabled networking with this working kernel
and chroot-ed into the new 1.0 stage 3 I had installed. Was able to
emerge kernel-sources and will build from there.

If the Gentoo devs are following this, I thought they might want to know
that something in PCMCIA support changed between 1.0_rc6 and 1.0 that
makes the install painful, but no impossible. Certainly not for the
people that don't know to work around it somehow.

If I should file a bugzilla report, let me know. I suspect there may be
a kernel option around this or a module parameter, but am not
knowledgeable enough to know what.

Regards and thanks,
matt

-- 
Matt Matthews     \ ph: 919.660.2811        \ Use GNU/Linux  _o) w00t
Duke Univ., Postdoc\ jvmatthe@math.duke.edu  \____________   /\\
Dept. of Mathematics\ http://www.math.duke.edu/~jvmatthe/ \ _\_V

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo 1.0 install CD (stage2/stage3) kernel panic(?) from PCMCIA

[Chad Huneycutt]

John Matthews wrote:
> If the Gentoo devs are following this, I thought they might want to know
> that something in PCMCIA support changed between 1.0_rc6 and 1.0 that
> makes the install painful, but no impossible. Certainly not for the
> people that don't know to work around it somehow.

I am not sure what to tell you.  What changed was that we moved from a 
semi-broken pcmcia-cs-3.1.31 to pcmcia-cs-3.1.33.  Here are a couple 
questions:

What happens if you modprobe i82365 ?  That autoloads pcmcia_core, so I 
would like to think that you get the same behavior, but it is something 
to try.  Exactly what steps do you use with the rc6 CD?  Where is the 
pcmcia_core module that you are insmod'ing?

> If I should file a bugzilla report, let me know. I suspect there may be
> a kernel option around this or a module parameter, but am not
> knowledgeable enough to know what.

You can file a bug, but I will need a bit more information, as the 
modules on the 1.0 CD work fine for me.

Chad (chadh@gentoo.org)

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo 1.0 install CD (stage2/stage3) kernel panic(?) from PCMCIA

[Matt Matthews]

On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 04:48:40PM -0500, Chad Huneycutt wrote:
> What happens if you modprobe i82365 ?  That autoloads pcmcia_core, so I 
> would like to think that you get the same behavior, but it is something 
> to try.  Exactly what steps do you use with the rc6 CD?  Where is the 
> pcmcia_core module that you are insmod'ing?

Tried modprobe-ing i82365 and got the same reaction, probably because
pcmcia_core was pulled in as well (as you noted). With the rc6 CD, I'm just
booting, hitting enter a few times to get to the prompt and then "modprobe
pcmcia_core", "modprobe i82365", "modprobe ds", "cardmgr -f", "dhcpcd eth0".
Works like a charm every time. I did not try insmod directly, now that I think
about it, but I would presume that the modules are being pulled by modprobe
from /lib/modules or wherever they live on the rc6 CD (and the 1.0 CD).

> You can file a bug, but I will need a bit more information, as the 
> modules on the 1.0 CD work fine for me.

Other than the above clarifications, I can't provide much more. As I said, the
laptop is completely disabled when I modprobe pcmcia_core. :^(

FWIW, I am now well on my way to getting GNOME back up, so I'm past the
problem. I thought I'd point out that the 1.0 CD didn't work for me in case
someone else comes along and has a similar problem.

Regards,
matt

-- 
Matt Matthews     \ ph: 919.660.2811        \ Use GNU/Linux  _o) w00t
Duke Univ., Postdoc\ jvmatthe@math.duke.edu  \____________   /\\
Dept. of Mathematics\ http://www.math.duke.edu/~jvmatthe/ \ _\_V

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo 1.0 install CD (stage2/stage3) kernel panic(?) from PCMCIA

[Chad Huneycutt]

Matt Matthews wrote:
 > On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 04:48:40PM -0500, Chad Huneycutt wrote:
 >> What happens if you modprobe i82365 ?  That autoloads pcmcia_core,
 >> so I would like to think that you get the same behavior, but it is
 >> something to try.  Exactly what steps do you use with the rc6 CD?
 >> Where is the pcmcia_core module that you are insmod'ing?
 >
 > Tried modprobe-ing i82365 and got the same reaction, probably
 > because pcmcia_core was pulled in as well (as you noted). With the
 > rc6 CD, I'm just booting, hitting enter a few times to get to the
 > prompt and then "modprobe pcmcia_core", "modprobe i82365", "modprobe
 > ds", "cardmgr -f", "dhcpcd eth0". Works like a charm every time. I
 > did not try insmod directly, now that I think about it, but I would
 > presume that the modules are being pulled by modprobe from
 > /lib/modules or wherever they live on the rc6 CD (and the 1.0 CD).

So pcmcia works on your 1.0 system, just not on the CD?  OK, that is
kind of weird.  I will find out what USE settings drobbins used to make
it.  Maybe there is something there.  At any rate, this is duly noted, 
and I will keep an eye out for anymore problems.

Chad

Re: [gentoo-dev] Gentoo 1.0 install CD (stage2/stage3) kernel panic(?) from PCMCIA

[Matt Matthews]

On Tue, Apr 02, 2002 at 06:26:20PM -0500, Chad Huneycutt wrote:
> So pcmcia works on your 1.0 system, just not on the CD?  OK, that is
> kind of weird.  I will find out what USE settings drobbins used to make
> it.  Maybe there is something there.  At any rate, this is duly noted, 
> and I will keep an eye out for anymore problems.

Just because I don't want to mislead anyone, let me explain clearly what I
did:
- boot 1.0 CD
- preliminaries setting up filesystem
- unpack stage 3 tarball
- power down
- boot using 1.0_rc6 CD
- modprobe pcmcia_core, i82365, ds; cardmgr -f; dhcpcd eth0
- mount partition(s) with stage 3 tarball stuff installed, etc.
- chroot into stage 3 system
- emerge kernel source (since network now available)
- build kernel 2.4.19 using exactly the options I had used on my old
(completely functional, GNOME, X11, et al) 1.0_rc6 system (i.e. PCMCIA
completely modular, using kernel modules, etc.) and install
- configure grub to list new kernel
- emerge pcmcia-cs
- exit chrooted system, unmount, power down
- reboot into new kernel
- working networkable system
- begin emerging everything else

Another thing I should point out. Back when I was first using Gentoo (last
week and the week before) I was having problems with the pcmcia stuff in the
kernels I was building. In particular, the kernels wouldn't build unless I
enabled SMP (laptop != SMP) which I didn't want. With these SMP kernels, I
found that PCMCIA would give me the same "kernel panic" behaviour that I'm
having now!

It turns out that I needed to "make mrproper" after emerging the kernel
source. After that, I could actually build a uniprocessor kernel! Furthermore,
that uniprocessor kernel would not give me the "kernel panic" behaviour.

So perhaps this is related? The install instructions do not encourage a "make
mrproper" last I looked, but I have been doing it from here on out and haven't
encountered the same weirdness.

Regards,
matt

-- 
Matt Matthews     \ ph: 919.660.2811        \ Use GNU/Linux  _o) w00t
Duke Univ., Postdoc\ jvmatthe@math.duke.edu  \____________   /\\
Dept. of Mathematics\ http://www.math.duke.edu/~jvmatthe/ \ _\_V