Subject: DECStation kernel boot failure

From: Guo-Rong Koh <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 22:16:08 +1030

Hi all,

Still trying to get Linux on my DECStation 5000/25.
I have attached the boot (fail) log in case anyone can tell me what's
going (not) on.

Thanks,
Guo-Rong

--kernel boot dump starts here--
KN02-CA V2.0m   
>>boot 3/rz0/vmlinux - root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.2.145:/mips
ip=bootp

NetBSD/pmax 1.5.1 FFS Primary Bootstrap

NetBSD/pmax 1.5.2 Secondary Bootstrap, Revision 1.3
([email-masked], Aug 23 10:47:54 EST 2001)

Boot: 3/rz0/vmlinux
2224128+172576 [186+159728+155633]=0x296614
Starting at 0x80040464

This DECstation is a Personal DS5000/xx
CPU revision is: 00000230
FPU revision is: 00000340
Primary instruction cache 64kb, linesize 4 bytes
Primary data cache 64kb, linesize 4 bytes
Linux version 2.4.16 (root@elrond) (gcc version 2.96 20000731 (Red Hat
Linux 7.1 2.96-96.1)) #7 Sun Dec 23 14:57:24 MET 2001
Determined physical RAM map:
 memory: 01000000 @ 00000000 (usable)
On node 0 totalpages: 4096
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 0 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
Kernel command line: root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.2.145:/mips
ip=bootp
Calibrating delay loop... 24.87 BogoMIPS
Memory: 13520k/16384k available (2007k kernel code, 2864k reserved,
87k data, 76k init)
Dentry-cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Kernel panic: can't allocate root vfsmount
In idle task - not syncing
--kernel boot dump finishes here--

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---

From: Jan-Benedict Glaw <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 13:47:23 +0100

On Fri, 2002-03-15 22:16:08 +1030, Guo-Rong Koh <[email-masked]>
> Kernel command line: root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.2.145:/mips

Command line looks good to me.

> --kernel boot dump finishes here--

You attempt to do nfsroot, but I can't see that your network card
has been detected. Are you sure you've included it into kernel
compile? If not, do so...

MfG, JBG

-- 
Jan-Benedict Glaw   .   [email-masked]   .   +49-172-7608481
	 -- New APT-Proxy written in shell script --
	   http://lug-owl.de/~jbglaw/software/ap2/

---

From: "Houten K.H.C. van (Karel)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 14:24:30 +0100

Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote:
> > ....

He uses my kernel image. I'm sure I've included the DECStation 5000
ethernet card, because the same image works OK on other DECStations.
I don't have access to a 5000/25 however.

Regards,
Karel.
-- 
Karel van Houten

----------------------------------------------------------
The box said "Requires Windows 95 or better."
I can't understand why it won't work on my Linux computer. 
----------------------------------------------------------

---

From: Jan-Benedict Glaw <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 14:49:54 +0100

On Fri, 2002-03-15 14:24:30 +0100, Houten K.H.C. van (Karel) <[email-masked]>
> I don't have access to a 5000/25 however.

...but Linux doesn't recognize the NIC on this box. Karel, digging
unto deep layers of my bad memory I can remember that some DECstations
had a different NIC or different way to access it or so. I've got
some different DECstations, but there's one which I cannot really
use because of lacking support for the nic. The box was supported
at some time (there at least exists some old hacked network driver
for 2.1.53 or so), but I do no longer have access to the file (my
laptop was stolen this week and the driver was in my TODO directory,
not backup'ed:-(

MfG, JBG
PS: However, the NIC isn't found, so the kernel cannot boot off nfsroot.

---

From: Karsten Merker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 20:59:46 +0100

> wrote in message <[email-masked]>:
[SNIP]
> laptop was stolen this week and the driver was in my TODO directory,

That was the LANCE driver for the 5000/200, which is different from 
the driver for all the 5000/xx, /1xx, /240 and /260. The Maxine 
should work with the default declance.c from the CVS.

Regards,
Karsten
-- 
Gemaess Par. 28 Abs. 3 Bundesdatenschutzgesetz widerspreche ich der
Nutzung und der Weitergabe meiner Daten zum Zwecke der Werbung sowie
der Markt- oder Meinungsforschung.

---

From: Dave Airlie <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 11:31:18 +0000 (GMT)

> should work with the default declance.c from the CVS.

Does the copy on my website still work ?

http://www.skynet.ie/~airlied/mips/declance_2_3_48.c

It was never merged as to do it properly required a re-write of the
driver, which I never got around to, and I only had a DS5000/200, I still
have one, but no build system at the moment ...

Dave.

-- 
David Airlie, Software Engineer
http://www.skynet.ie/~airlied / [email-masked]
pam_smb / Linux DecStation / Linux VAX / ILUG person

---

From: Jan-Benedict Glaw <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 23:13:46 +0100

On Sat, 2002-03-16 11:31:18 +0000, Dave Airlie <[email-masked]>

> have one, but no build system at the moment ...

When I looked at that driver, the diff was quite small and only
included changes to in-driver code parts. So I _think_ it could
even run these days. I started to work on it some year ago, but
my changes are lost now - my laptop was stolen this week.

However, I think it could run. I can try to compile a kernel with
this driver, there's a running toolchain here:-)

MfG, JBG

---

From: Karel van Houten <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 10:03:44 +0100 (MET)

> my changes are lost now - my laptop was stolen this week.

It does still work with 2.4.16 / 2.4.17. It's included in
my precompiled DS5000/200 kernels at my website.

-- 
Karel van Houten