I just upgraded an older machine, PII 400mhz, 256mb RAM, from Etch to Lenny.* The upgrade went smoothly, but the new Lenny kernel hangs upon booting.* The old Etch kernel (2.6.18) is still present and boots up fine into the Lenny upgrade.* When booting from the 2.6.26 kernel, it never makes it to the "Uncompressing Linux" stage, only appears to load the kernel and the initrd, then just stops.* Ctrl-Alt-Delete will reboot it, so it doesn't lock hard, just goes into a coma.* I've re-installed the kernel image and have tried a few suggested boot parameters, (noapic, etc,etc) but there is no change. Any idea of what might cause it to hang that early in the boot?

Thanks,
D. C. Busboom

2009/2/21 Dennis Busboom <dcbnebr@yahoo.com>:
> I just upgraded an older machine, PII 400mhz, 256mb RAM, from Etch to
> Lenny. The upgrade went smoothly, but the new Lenny kernel hangs upon
> booting. The old Etch kernel (2.6.18) is still present and boots up fine
> into the Lenny upgrade. When booting from the 2.6.26 kernel, it never makes
> it to the "Uncompressing Linux" stage, only appears to load the kernel and
> the initrd, then just stops. Ctrl-Alt-Delete will reboot it, so it doesn't
> lock hard, just goes into a coma. I've re-installed the kernel image and
> have tried a few suggested boot parameters, (noapic, etc,etc) but there is
> no change. Any idea of what might cause it to hang that early in the boot?

What processor architecture is the new kernel compiled for?

Adrian

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<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to
ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my
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2009/2/21 Dennis Busboom <dcbnebr@yahoo.com>:
> I just upgraded an older machine, PII 400mhz, 256mb RAM, from Etch to
> Lenny. The upgrade went smoothly, but the new Lenny kernel hangs upon
> booting. The old Etch kernel (2.6.18) is still present and boots up fine
> into the Lenny upgrade. When booting from the 2.6.26 kernel, it never makes
> it to the "Uncompressing Linux" stage, only appears to load the kernel and
> the initrd, then just stops. Ctrl-Alt-Delete will reboot it, so it doesn't
> lock hard, just goes into a coma. I've re-installed the kernel image and
> have tried a few suggested boot parameters, (noapic, etc,etc) but there is
> no change. Any idea of what might cause it to hang that early in the boot?

Just to add, you could install one of the linux-image-686 or
linux-image-2.6-686 meta packages.

The first one depends on the most recent linux kernel, the second one
depends on the most recent 2.6 kernel.

Adrian

--
24x7x365 != 24x7x52 Stupid or bad maths?
<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to
ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my
apartment it is.


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Adrian Levi wrote:
> 2009/2/21 Dennis Busboom <dcbnebr@yahoo.com>:
>> I just upgraded an older machine, PII 400mhz, 256mb RAM, from Etch to
>> Lenny. The upgrade went smoothly, but the new Lenny kernel hangs upon
>> booting. The old Etch kernel (2.6.18) is still present and boots up fine
>> into the Lenny upgrade. When booting from the 2.6.26 kernel, it never makes
>> it to the "Uncompressing Linux" stage, only appears to load the kernel and
>> the initrd, then just stops. Ctrl-Alt-Delete will reboot it, so it doesn't
>> lock hard, just goes into a coma. I've re-installed the kernel image and
>> have tried a few suggested boot parameters, (noapic, etc,etc) but there is
>> no change. Any idea of what might cause it to hang that early in the boot?
>
> Just to add, you could install one of the linux-image-686 or
> linux-image-2.6-686 meta packages.
>
> The first one depends on the most recent linux kernel, the second one
> depends on the most recent 2.6 kernel.
>
> Adrian
>

Just a thought, I hope there is no change in naming the various disk
partitions (devices).



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> Just to add, you could install one of the linux-image-686 or
> linux-image-2.6-686 meta packages.

> The first one depends on the most recent linux kernel, the second one
> depends on the most recent 2.6 kernel.

I tried linux-image-2.6-686 and linux-image-686 (for PentiumX machines).
Both behave the same way. I see the kernel and initrd load, then nothing.
The old 2.6.18 still boots right up. I also tried going into the grub
command-mode and doing a 'testload' on the kernels and initrd images.
They appear to load just fine, but trying to actually 'boot' them sends
the machine into never-never-land. Definitely something this old box
doesn't like about the new kernal.

D. C. Busboom

2009/2/21 Dennis Busboom <dcbnebr@yahoo.com>:

> I tried linux-image-2.6-686 and linux-image-686 (for PentiumX machines).
> Both behave the same way. I see the kernel and initrd load, then nothing.
> The old 2.6.18 still boots right up. I also tried going into the grub
> command-mode and doing a 'testload' on the kernels and initrd images.
> They appear to load just fine, but trying to actually 'boot' them sends
> the machine into never-never-land. Definitely something this old box
> doesn't like about the new kernal.

Yes, If it's not getting to a kernel panic from unable to rind a root
device then i'm perplexed. You seem to be running the right kernel for
your machine.

Could you try running memtest86+ on it and see if its a memory issue.

Adrian

--
24x7x365 != 24x7x52 Stupid or bad maths?
<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to
ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my
apartment it is.


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> Could you try running memtest86+ on it and see if its a memory issue.

I fired up memtest before leaving last night. It ran 10 hours, 12 passes
with no errors. Only thing I can think of now is to grab some source and
and roll my own where I can cherry-pick and make some SWAG's (Silly Wild A$$ed Guesses)
as to what it'll take to make 2.6.26 go.

D. C. Busboom



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2009/2/22 Dennis Busboom <dcbnebr@yahoo.com>:
>> Could you try running memtest86+ on it and see if its a memory issue.
>
> I fired up memtest before leaving last night. It ran 10 hours, 12 passes
> with no errors. Only thing I can think of now is to grab some source and
> and roll my own where I can cherry-pick and make some SWAG's (Silly Wild A$$ed Guesses)
> as to what it'll take to make 2.6.26 go.
>
> D. C. Busboom

Before you go and do that, It might be worth mentioning something on
the debian-kernel mailing list. The kernel developers may have some
ideas why the 686 kernel fails for you.

http://lists.debian.org/debian-kernel/

If they find a solution for you please do report back here with your
findings. I'd be interested in knowing what's going on.

Adrian

--
24x7x365 != 24x7x52 Stupid or bad maths?
<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to
ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my
apartment it is.


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I think I've discovered what's causing the hang, but haven't had time to
dig into it. It seems that the video card (huh?!) is the problem.

lspci -v shows this with the 2.6.28 kernel booted up....

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV4 [RIVA TNT]
(rev 04) (
Subsystem: VISIONTEK Device 0020
Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 9
Memory at f5000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at fc000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=16M]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 1
Capabilities: [44] AGP version 1.0
Kernel driver in use: rivafb
----------------------------------------------------------------
On a whim I dropped in a low end VESA PCI card and 2.6.26 boots right
up. Put the Nvidia Riva back in, and the hang returns. And people
wonder why I have ulcers.

D. C. Busboom



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2009/2/23 Dennis Busboom <dcbnebr@yahoo.com>:
> I think I've discovered what's causing the hang, but haven't had time to
> dig into it. It seems that the video card (huh?!) is the problem.
>
> lspci -v shows this with the 2.6.28 kernel booted up....
>
> 01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV4 [RIVA TNT]
> (rev 04) (
> Subsystem: VISIONTEK Device 0020
> Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 9
> Memory at f5000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
> Memory at fc000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=16M]
> Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 1
> Capabilities: [44] AGP version 1.0
> Kernel driver in use: rivafb
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> On a whim I dropped in a low end VESA PCI card and 2.6.26 boots right
> up. Put the Nvidia Riva back in, and the hang returns. And people
> wonder why I have ulcers.
>
> D. C. Busboom

What made you suspect the video card?
The 2.6.28 kernel that you are running is vanilla or from unstable?

Adrian

--
24x7x365 != 24x7x52 Stupid or bad maths?
<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to
ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my
apartment it is.


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