Re: Bug#440720: [SPARC]: non-SMP kernel fail on SunFIres with >= 2 CPUs
Hi,
>>> Bernd, can you test lastest 2.6.23 snapshot and see if it works? Check
>>> at http://wiki.debian.org/DebianKernel for more information where to
>>> find them.
>> I've installed the machine using a 2.6.23-rc5 _smp_ kernel, all older
>> non-smp kernels failed to boot, and as Ihad to build my own installer
>> and kernel anyway I've decided to use an smp version.
>
> Have you tested it witn a non-smp kernel?
Well, I've tried to boot a non-SMP kernel (2.6.23-rc5) a few minutes ago
(... and I had to power-cycle it, it is running selftests now....), and
the machine froze after
Remapping the kernel... done.
OF stdout device is: /pci@9,700000/ebus@1/serial@1,400000:a
Booting Linux...
Which is just the same state as described in
http://lists.debian.org/debian-sparc/2007/09/msg00045.html
which talks about a SunFire v240 which uses 2 US III CPus. Please note
that the last non-SMP kernels seem (as in: according to goole) to boot
well on the SunFire v210, which is a 1 HE machine with ONE cpu only.
>
>> As it takes a _long_ time to reboot a machine with a "crashed" CPU
>> (which was the result of all non-SMP kernel tests so far), and the
>> machine should be in production yet, I would like to avoid to try a
>> non-smp kernel on this machine.
>
> Right. It makes difficult to us to know if has or not been fixed since
> your last try.
As I said before, I doubt that this fixable - you have to use a SMP kernel.
> - add a subarch for sparc with the needed kernel changes for it;
As this seems to affect all machines running more than one US III CPU
this would probably a good thing. Not only that those machines start to
be avaiable at ebay for not-soooo-much-money and are still sold, and the
Ultrasparc IV should have the same features (issues in this case), this
would make more then sense to allow to run Debian on serious sparc Hardware.
> - change default kernel on installer to be smp;
I've given that idea a try and tried to boot a SMP kernel on a single
cpu (US IIi) machine and the machine froze in the same state as the v880
above. So I guess it's not possible to run SMP kernels on all sparc
machines.
Cheers,
Bernd
--
Bernd Zeimetz
<bernd@bzed.de> <http://bzed.de/>
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