Bug#277298: RTC issue.
I just noticed the comment on my page:
http://zacbowling.com/archives/2004/10/06/debian-dell/
The RTC driver wasn't the issue because I compiled full support for RTC
into my kernel and it works great.
I did a lot of investigation and I found that most Dell machines have a
slightly different setup chipset in their RTC setup on the motherboard
then the OEM releases to everyone else that the Dell chip is based on.
(I can get pictures of it later.) They said its because they are doing
something special (I don't remember what the Dell Linux team said and at
the time didn't understand what it was exactly) but that makes the
machine work better then most standard boards. From memory, I recall him
saying its suppost to be 100% compatable with all the documented
archatecture. They also said because of that, if you call it in some
unexpected special way or order, it can cause some unpredicticted
problems. They said they see it in very rare cases in the 2.6 kernels
and recommended upgrading my kernel to the latest version from
kernel.org (going back to how they submit code back to the kernel team
all the time) or using their custom one for RedHat.
I can't seem to reproduce the issue with the kernels I compile. I don't
program at that low of a level (...yet...). I've tired just about
everything. I've gotten it to crash for other reasons, but I can't
reproduce that error even with that exact version of the 2.6 kernel with
all the kernel patches. I'm going to the office this week, but I will
send in my .config when I can get on that machine. You can figure out
exactly what I did on my site:
http://zacbowling.com/archives/2004/10/06/debian-dell/
Another place to look is here:
http://lists.us.dell.com/pipermail/linux-poweredge/2004-September/thread.html#22046
I busy right not trying to bring 8 woody machines up at my colo to being
able to run Mono, PHP5, and Horde by backporting packages and
dependencies and installing new packages without breaking or taking down
any applications currently running for our customers, but after I'm done
I can focus a bit more time on this issue.
I'm sorry I couldn't help anymore then that, but I hope that helps you
get on the right direction.
Thanks!
Zac Bowling
http://zacbowling.com
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