Bug#265080: kernel-image-2.4.26-1-686: recent 2.4.26-1 packaged kernels totally fsck console on Inspiron 8000
Package: kernel-image-2.4.26-1-686
Version: 2.4.26-4
Severity: important
Sorry this isn't more specific, but the Sarge install was done more to see
if the tc1 netinst worked on this sometimes quirky laptop. After a little
magic with boot options, it did. Recently I came back to it, intending to
setup a more complete testing platform in order to compare it to the
Libranet install on the same machine. And somewhere along the way through
all the package upgrades the console went west...
I'm almost certain that it happened one kernel-package release earlier than
the one currently installed. It definitely worked with the kernel the
install CD left behind, and perhaps one upgrade (that would have been
whatever was current within a few weeks of TC1's release - June, more or
less). I'm not certain that I had had the -686 flavor installed previously,
becuase last evening, after building a relatively stripped down stock
2.4.27, which worked fine, I ripped 2.4.26 out entirely and reinstalled.
That made no difference, alas.
The symptom is pretty obvious: well into the boot process, at or near the
point where rivafb kicks in, the console tries to switch modes. After a
couple of seconds of blankness, it comes back with part of a few lines of
text smeared and shredded across the screen. Everything but the display
still works (I'm entering this report via SSH from the desktop). At least
once it behaved differently: instead of visually encrypted text the screen
slowly went grey, then a red smear started to appear... I'm guessing that
the LCD drive hardware had wedged up. Interestingly, the networking failed
to come up on that boot, though CAD still got me a clean reboot.
There's so much different between the 2.4.27 that works and the packaged
2.4.26 that I doubt listing the difference will be enlightening, but since
there was a suggestion that the framebuffer was involved, I naturally left
that out of the build.
Inspiron 8000, geforce2-go video, 1600x1200 LCD, Xicom PCMCIA ethernet
I think that covers everything I know about this.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.27-lap2
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C
Versions of packages kernel-image-2.4.26-1-686 depends on:
ii coreutils [fileutils] 5.2.1-2 The GNU core utilities
ii initrd-tools 0.1.71 tools to create initrd image for p
ii modutils 2.4.26-1 Linux module utilities
-- no debconf information
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