-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Frank McCormick <fmccormick@videotron.ca>
To: Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>
Subject: Re: Bug#632734: Strange
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2011 09:54:49 -0400
On 11/07/11 12:12 AM, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-07-05 at 17:29 -0400, Frank wrote:
>> On 05/07/11 04:23 PM, Ben Hutchings wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jul 05, 2011 at 02:48:26PM -0400, Frank M wrote:
>>>> I find it strange that the PAE kernel is the ONLY one which gives me
>>>> any trouble.
>>>> I guess it could be hardware related, but 2.6.38-1 and 2.6.38-2 have both been
>>>> booting fine for months.
>>>> Is there something about the PAE series that would uncover hardware faults which
>>>> may have existed for a long time ?
>>>
>>> Have you tried booting those earlier versions recently?
>>
>> Yes I've been booting them everyday for the past month or so - the
>> PAE series is the first time in years, literally, that I have had
>> problems like this.
>
> We have provided kernel packages using PAE for a long time, previously
> labelled as '686-bigmem'. You can test linux-image-2.6.38-2-686-bigmem
> to check whether this bug is related to use of PAE. However, I think it
> is probably due to a change between Linux 2.6.38 and 2.6.39.
Well I **think** the bigmem kernel now is actually the PAE kernel. I
installed the bigmem kernel and it turned out to be the troublesome PAE
version.
I still don't understand why the changes created this problem for me.
The strange thing is on multiple tries, on a regular boot and on
maintenance boots, the computer will sometimes get to different points
before it gives up. The boots usually end up with the num lock and caps
lock lights flashing.
I guess what I'll do is remove the PAE kernel again and continue with
the previous series. Long term I don't know what I'll do - I do know
that Ubuntu kernels have not yet been a problem. So if the working
kernel in my machine gets too far behind I have a choice.
--
Cheers
Frank