Bug#607194: bugs.debian.org: Computer randomly fails on startup

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

retitle 607194 radeon: random general protection faults when RV620 firmware not installed
found 607194 linux-2.6/2.6.32-29
# probably affects wheezy, too
tags 607194 - squeeze
reassign 610851 src:linux-2.6 2.6.32-30
merge 610851 607194
quit

Hi Andries,

Bergen A van wrote:

> In Squeeze all non-free firmware is removed out of the kernel.
> So I decided to run Squeeze whithout non-free firmware.
> Then the bug occurs randomly at startup.
> I have long struggled with the problem and tried everything.
>
> At one point I decided to solve:
>
>  [   19.381024] r600_cp: Failed to load firmware "radeon/RV620_pfp.bin"
>
> by installing the firmware-linux-nonfree package.
>
> This has solved the problem! Do not know why.
> So it seems that Squeeze cannot be run on HP Pavilion dv2 whitout non-free
> firmware.

I see.  This sounds like <http://bugs.debian.org/610851> (oopses
reminiscent of memory corruption after modesetting without radeon
microcode installed).  Maybe the ACPI errors were a red herring.

Please attach "dmesg" output from a boot with the non-free firmware
installed, for comparison with the log already sent.

Thanks,
Jonathan