booting 2.4 kernel on old PC

[Marco Franzen <Marco.Franzen@bigfoot.com>]

Hi,

Any ideas why a 2.4 kernel would not work when a 2.2 kernel would?

My old hardware is an Asus MB from 1997 with an SIS chipset,
(non-super) 370 socket, Pentium MMX 166 MHz, 128MB EDO SIMMs.
I thought before I buy brand new hardware that requires a 2.4 kernel,
I should try the 2.4 kernel on my old hardware and get it to know.

First I tried to boot Knoppix directly from CD, but this does not
work, even with the failsafe flavour.  It hangs like detailed below.

Then I installed the 568tsc 2.4 kernel into the existing Woody system
on that box, but now it does not boot anymore either (unless of course
I choose the old kernel in lilo menu).  Woody worked fine on this box
with the Vanilla 2.2 kernel (and before that with ide-pci flavour, and
so does M$ Win 98 SE).

(I am afraid of installing another kernel because this might replace
my working 'old' kernel with the non-working currently 'new' one.)

Here are the last messages I get from 2.4:

: ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
: SIS5513: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 09
; PCI: Assigned IRQ 14 for device 00:01.1
; SIS5513: chipset revision 208
: SIS5513: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
; SIS5597
:     ide0: BM-DMA at 0xd000-0xd007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
:     ide1: BM-DMA at 0xd008-0xd00f, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:pio
: hda: Maxtor 91366U4, ATA DISK drive
; hdb: CD-W524E, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
. hdb: CD-W524E, ATAPI CDROM drive
: hdc: WDC AC21600H, ATA DISK drive
: ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
: ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
+ insmod: Note: /etc/modules.conf is more recent than /lib/modules/2.4.18-568tsc/modules.dep

The lines prefixed by ': ' appear with 2.2 and both 2.4 kernels.
The lines prefixed by '; ' appear only with the 2.4 kernels.
The line  prefixed by '+ ' appears only with 568tsc, but not Knoppix.
The lines prefixed by '. ' appear only with the 2.2 kernel.

Both 568tsc and Knoppix hang at this point, but 2.2 continues like this:

. hda: Maxtor 91366U4, 13029MB w/2048kB Cache, CHS=1661/255/63
. hdc: WDC AC21600H, 1549MB w/128kB Cache, CHS=3148/16/63

Do these two lines indicate a conflict for IRQ 14?
; PCI: Assigned IRQ 14 for device 00:01.1
[...]
: ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14

Since the first of these two lines is not output under the 2.2, how
can I tell whether this is different on the working system?
This is what I read from /proc/interrupts:

	     CPU0       
    0:     558596          XT-PIC  timer
    1:       8532          XT-PIC  keyboard
    2:          0          XT-PIC  cascade
    8:          1          XT-PIC  rtc
    9:         37          XT-PIC  AM53C974, eth0
   12:      22678          XT-PIC  PS/2 Mouse
   13:          0          XT-PIC  fpu
   14:     768932          XT-PIC  ide0
   15:         19          XT-PIC  ide1
  NMI:          0

In fact, I think the ide is connected via pci.
This is what I get from /proc/pci:

  PCI devices found:
    Bus  0, device   0, function  0:
      Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems 5597/5598 Host (rev 2).
	Medium devsel.  Master Capable.  Latency=32.  
    Bus  0, device   1, function  0:
      ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems 85C503 (rev 1).
	Medium devsel.  Master Capable.  No bursts.  
    Bus  0, device   1, function  1:
      IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems 85C5513 (rev 208).
	Fast devsel.  IRQ 14.  Master Capable.  Latency=32.  
	I/O at 0xe400 [0xe401].
	I/O at 0xe000 [0xe001].
	I/O at 0xd800 [0xd801].
	I/O at 0xd400 [0xd401].
	I/O at 0xd000 [0xd001].
    Bus  0, device   9, function  0:
      SCSI storage controller: AMD 53C974 (rev 16).
	Medium devsel.  IRQ 9.  Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Min Gnt=4.Max Lat=40.
	I/O at 0xb800 [0xb801].
    Bus  0, device  10, function  0:
      VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems Unknown device (rev 11).
	Vendor id=1039. Device id=6326.
	Medium devsel.  IRQ 9.  Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Min Gnt=2.
	Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe7000000 [0xe7000008].
	Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe4800000 [0xe4800000].
	I/O at 0xb400 [0xb401].
    Bus  0, device  11, function  0:
      Ethernet controller: Realtek 8139 (rev 16).
	Medium devsel.  Fast back-to-back capable.  IRQ 9.  Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Min Gnt=32.Max Lat=64.
	I/O at 0xb000 [0xb001].
	Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe4000000 [0xe4000000].
    Bus  0, device  19, function  0:
      VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems 5597/5598 VGA (rev 101).
	Medium devsel.  
	Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe6000000 [0xe6000008].
	Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe3800000 [0xe3800000].
	I/O at 0xa800 [0xa801].

Any more ideas? Why would 2.4 break where 2.2 works?

Thanks,
Marco