Re: Oracle S7-2 and ConnextX4-LX, ConnectX3 (VPI), and i40e
That is a good idea, thanks again for your assistance with sparc kernel panics. The S7 is stable now, kernel wise, compared to before. Yes, I agree more work needs to be done regarding sparc64 Debian. It will be helpful to track issues to help resolve them.
Other issues:
1) Konsole, Gnome terminal, etc generate dots/lines within terminals with lxde. Using clear and resetting the terminal will not remove the dots/lines. However, this is not the case with “lx terminal. lx terminal appears to work without any visible issues.
2) Kde plasma and Gnome fail to install. Will have to double check the reason,can’t remember the particular error, but think it is related to dependencies.
**Please list all the apt souces.list repos you typically use for sparc64. This way we can all add them as well, hopefully that will resolve packages with dependency issues. Just in case I am missing any?
> On Sep 11, 2025, at 3:56 AM, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz <glaubitz@physik.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
>
> Hi Tony,
>
>> On Tue, 2025-09-09 at 20:41 -0700, Tony Rodriguez wrote:
>> For those with an Oracle S7-2, but this may be valid for other Sparc
>> systems as well: (just a heads-up)
>>
>> 1) The "ConnectX-4 lx" NIC appears to work with Solaris 11.4 and Debian
>> 12. However, on Debian 12, the "ConnectX-4 lx" will generate many
>> tainted kernel messages (related to mlx5 module). Tried latest
>> firmwares for this card, (from Dell and Nvidia), all have the same
>> issues. In my case, the tainted messages appear when configured to use
>> systemd-networkd and during system boot/reboot/poweroff.
>>
>> 2) As such, decided to downgrade and use "ConnectX-3 CX354A-FCBT
>> (VPI)". This particular card works with Solaris 11.4 and Debian 12. It
>> also works in Ethernet and Infiniband modes. Both Solaris 11.4 and
>> Debian 12 see this nic in either mode. It uses the mlx4 module and
>> appears to avoid generating tainted kernel messages.
>>
>>
>> Note(S):
>>
>> 2A) For infiniband verbs, the (rdma-core package) a.k.a.
>> (infiniband-diags package replacement) will need to add a specific build
>> option to create the ibverbs executables. I did so by building from
>> source. Might be helpful to modify the rdma-core build so it will
>> automatically generate all ibverbs such as ibstat, ibstatus, etc.
>>
>> 2B) opensm package has a dependency with infiniband-diags package.
>> However, the infiniband-diags package will not install (possibly because
>> of rdma-core). Guessing opensm package will require an update to use
>> rdma-core and possibly dropping infiniband-diags. Didn't attempt to
>> build opensm from scratch, so I can't say for sure yet. Unsure if
>> infiniband-diags is required by other packages at this point.
>>
>> 2C) On another note, the "ConnectX-3 CX314A-BCCT" will work with Debian
>> 12 in Ethernet only mode, but it is not detected/recognized by Solaris
>> 11.4. If Solaris 11.4, Debian 12, Ethernet, and Infiniband
>> compatibility are required, make sure to use the "ConnectX-3 CX354A-FCBT
>> (VPI)" NIC.
>>
>>
>> 3) The built-in i40e 10GBE ports on the S7-2 generate the following
>> messages within Debian 12. It works and doesn't appear to be a major
>> issue. Just unsure if this unaligned access may impact performance on
>> some level? iperf3 didn't show any noticeable performance drop, but it
>> may be something to keep an eye on.
>>
>> For Example:
>> i40e 0000:03:00.1: DCB init failed -16, disabled
>> Kernel unaligned access at TPC[101a7f28] i40e_config_netdev+0x1e8/0x2e0
>> [i40e]
>
> Thanks for the feedback!
>
> FWIW, I'm currently working on setting up a Github project for Linux on SPARC
> to be able to track these problems in an issue tracker. This way, it will be
> easier for everyone interested to check for the list of current problems and
> help out if interested.
>
> Adrian
>
> --
> .''`. John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
> : :' : Debian Developer
> `. `' Physicist
> `- GPG: 62FF 8A75 84E0 2956 9546 0006 7426 3B37 F5B5 F913
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