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DMA, mkinitrd and bootsplash



Hi all,
  I write this e-mail a bit upset after spending three days trying to install 
a new kernel with bootsplash and suspend2. And I write this to avoid anybody 
else to spend the same. I do not know who must solve this, but I think that 
there is a problem with bootsplash or mkinitrd. I can provide more details it 
someone requires them. 

  I had the 2.6.9-1-686-smp kernel running perfectly, but I would like to 
install a new kernel with the above patches. I donloaded the 2.6.11 kernel 
from the debian repositories, I compiled the kernel, no problem. I installed 
the bootsplash packages, the new initrd with the bootsplash images was 
generated. The system booted almost correctly, I said "almost" because the 
DMA was not activated. Then is when all problems appeared.

  Since the DMA was not activated the first thing I thoght is that there was a 
problem in the kernel configuration. So I installed the 2.6.11-1-686-smp 
kernel image from the kernel repositories. To my surprise, the kernel from 
the debian repositores neither had the DMA activated. What is this? I thoght, 
a bug in the new kernels, it is very unlikely, isn't it? I searched in 
google, I found some people with a similar problem to mine, but I did not 
find any solution.

  So I installed kernel-image-2.6.8-2-686-smp from the debian repositories, 
This kernel neither had the DMA activated. I could not belive it, it is the 
stable repository!!!! Is there a problem in my system?
  
  I booted the kernel I had before this (2.6.9-1-686-smp from debian) and it 
worked correctly. What do I do? should I keep this kernel? No bootsplash have 
to work....

  I started again, I removed the kernels that did not work and I reinstalled 
the kernel image 2.6.11-1-686-smp. This time the new kernel (from the debian 
repository) worked correctly, the DMA is workning now!!!! Why? the kernel is 
the same (as it was in the cache, the system didn't need to download it). The 
only possible difference is the initrd image. 

  After investigating a bit I discover that when installing the bootsplash 
package, in generates a new initrd image but there is a difference in the 
order of loading the modules. The original initrd load the modules (file 
loadmodules in the initrd image), first piix and then ide_generic. The 
modified version load first ide_generic, and that prevents the DMA to be 
acitvated. If you install the bootsplash manually, with the splash command, 
the bootsplash work correctly and the DMA is activated.

Luis.

-- 
http://antares.sip.ucm.es/~luis
In a world without walls, who needs Windows(R)?

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