Problem with the kernel.

[Zito]

Hello.
I am a new user of Cobalt Qube 3. As an experienced linux user, I decided to install a system from scratch, and discover this new piece of h/w.
The original OS, 450MHz CPU, 128MB RAM, 2x 40GB ATA, was not sa
The first thing I did was update the firmware, and install the Sil 3114 SATA controller + random SATA disk from my drawer;)

Of course, OS did not support the SATA controller, so I took to be the modern installations of the system.
It was surprisingly easy to install the latest Gentoo distribution....
stage3 + portage + linux-3.0.4-cobalt.tar.gz (this page) + a few regular gentoo installation steps. And voila! The system works like a dream!

The next step is to recompile the kernel 3.0.4 to support SATA.
And here my troubles began. Messages about time out to access the drive stopped running the system. I started to dig ..

I looked ROM command, cmos, pci ... nothing works(just read withot change anything). The system boots only when SATA drive was disconnected.
Brought back the default CMOS settings ... and that was the end (?)

From now on, the kernel no longer be bootable:

Code:

Second stage kernel: Decompressing - done
command line: 'console = ttyS0, 115200 debug ip = off'
booting kernel ...

I tested three kernel of this page:

Code:

-rwxr-xr-x 1 500 users 1319216 Dec 22 2010 vmlinux-2.6.36.2-cobalt.bz2
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1986448 Jun 5 2011 vmlinux-2.6.39.1-cobalt.bz2
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1936698 Oct 2 18:19 vmlinux-3.0.4-cobalt.bz2

.. and just vmlinux-2.6.36.2


Can anybody explain this?
Why after Restoring CMOS, only older kernel is booting? It is important the size of the kernel? Why now?

What I noticed, before clearing CMOS. Booting off the system looks different:

Code:

First stage kernel (Linux): Decompressing - done
ERROR: can not relocate with filesize 0
                                                           <--- THIS
Second stage kernel: Decompressing - done

"THIS" time was very short. Now(with or without debug), it takes some time. Nothing unusual - normal start of the ROM Kernel. But before, it took much less time.

I know abut seting sda/hda as a root/boot device - everything is ok.

Thats the log of starting Gentoo with 2.6.36.2-cobalt kernel:

Code:

         Sun Cobalt - Smaller, Bluer, Better, and Free
               Firmware version 2.10.3-ext3

Current date: Dec 13 06:37:16 UTC 2011
ROM build info: Thu Mar 11 08:51:36 MST 2004 .
System serial number: invalid csum!
System type: 3000 series system, Version 2 board
Silicon serial number: 2f000007d7fb7801
Monitor: 153536 bytes
Memory: 256 MB
CPU: 1 processor(s) detected
  CPU 0: AuthenticAMD 448MHz (4.5 x 100MHz host bus) [BSP]
Initializing flash: done
  Flash Bank 0: AMD AM29F080B 1024KB (01:d5)
  Flash Bank 1: not installed.
Mounting ROM fs: done
Initializing PCI: done
  Host Bus: 0 (device 19:02) [33MHz]
    Device: 00:00 10b9:1541 Acer Labs M1541 Aladdin V Host Bridge
    Device: 01:00 10b9:5243 Acer Labs M5243 AGP Controller
    Device: 02:00 10b9:5237 Acer Labs M5237 USB Controller (IRQ 6)
    Device: 03:00 10b9:7101 Acer Labs M7101 PMU
    Device: 07:00 10b9:1533 Acer Labs M1543 Aladdin V PCI-ISA Bridge
    Device: 0e:00 1000:000f Symbios Logic SYM53C875 SCSI Controller (IRQ 12)
    Device: 0f:00 10b9:5229 Acer Labs M5229 TXpro IDE Controller (IRQ 14)
    Device: 10:00 100b:0020 National DP83815 MacPhyter Ethernet (IRQ 11)
    Device: 12:00 100b:0020 National DP83815 MacPhyter Ethernet (IRQ 10)
    Device: 14:00 1095:3114 unknown device (IRQ 9)
  Bridged Bus: 1 (bridge: 00:01:00)
Initializing ethernet: 2 controller(s) found
  National Semiconductor DP83815 Found at port 0xfc00, MAC: 00:10:e0:05:47:fb
  National Semiconductor DP83815 Found at port 0xfb00, MAC: 00:10:e0:05:47:fa
Initializing IDE: found ALI M5229 at 00:78
  spinning up second channel: done
  scanning ide0: master
  scanning ide1:
IDE: stabilizing spinup: 100%
Checking Memory: done

Press spacebar to enter ROM mode
Booting default method - From disk

Enabling L2 cache: on-chip L2 is 128K -done
First stage kernel (Linux): Decompressing - done
ERROR: cannot relocate with filesize 0
command line: 'console=ttyS0,115200 debug mem=22M cobalt_boot_image=/boot/vmlinux.bz2,/vmlinux.bz2,/boot/vmlinux.gz,/vmlinux.gz cobalt_boot_return=0x161f394 cobalt_boot_data=0x1634cc4 cobalt_boot_load=0x1700000 cobalt_ramcode_map=0x1600000,0xa00000 ip=off '
booting kernel...
Linux version 2.4.25-ROM (duncan@atherton) (gcc version 3.3.3 (Debian 20040306)) #1 Thu Mar 11 08:47:53 MST 2004
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e801: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable)
 BIOS-e801: 0000000000100000 - 0000000010000000 (usable)
user-defined physical RAM map:
 user: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable)
 user: 0000000000100000 - 0000000001600000 (usable)
22MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 5632
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 1536 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
DMI not present.
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 debug mem=22M cobalt_boot_image=/boot/vmlinux.bz2,/vmlinux.bz2,/boot/vmlinux.gz,/vmlinux.gz cobalt_boot_return=0x161f394 cobalt_boot_data=0x1634cc4 cobalt_boot_load=0x1700000 cobalt_ramcode_map=0x1600000,0xa00000 ip=off
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 448.211 MHz processor.
Calibrating delay loop... 894.56 BogoMIPS
Memory: 20208k/22528k available (1141k kernel code, 1932k reserved, 244k data, 100k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
Enabling new style K6 write allocation for 22 Mb
CPU: L1 I Cache: 32K (32 bytes/line), D cache 32K (32 bytes/line)
CPU: L2 Cache: 128K (32 bytes/line)
CPU:     After generic, caps: 008021bf c08029bf 00000000 00000002
CPU:             Common caps: 008021bf c08029bf 00000000 00000002
CPU: AMD-K6(tm)-III Processor stepping 04
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: AMD K6
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
VFS: Disk quotas vdquot_6.5.1
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
pty: 256 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with MANY_PORTS SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
ttyS01 at 0x02f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10f
Non-volatile memory driver v1.2
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
natsemi dp8381x driver, version 1.07+LK1.0.17, Sep 27, 2002
  originally by Donald Becker <becker@scyld.com>
  http://www.scyld.com/network/natsemi.html
  2.4.x kernel port by Jeff Garzik, Tjeerd Mulder
eth0: NatSemi DP8381[56] at 0xc2000000, 00:10:e0:05:47:fb, IRQ 11.
eth1: NatSemi DP8381[56] at 0xc2002000, 00:10:e0:05:47:fa, IRQ 10.
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
ALI15X3: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:0f.0
ALI15X3: chipset revision 193
ALI15X3: 100% native mode on irq 14
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xfdd0-0xfdd7, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xfdd8-0xfddf, BIOS settings: hdc:DMA, hdd:DMA
hda: ST340810A, ATA DISK drive
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
blk: queue c0298fa0, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
ide0 at 0xfdf8-0xfdff,0xfdf6 on irq 14
hda: attached ide-disk driver.
hda: host protected area => 1
hda: 78165360 sectors (40021 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=77545/16/63, UDMA(33)
Partition check:
 hda: hda1 hda2
md: linear personality registered as nr 1
md: raid0 personality registered as nr 2
md: raid1 personality registered as nr 3
md: raid5 personality registered as nr 4
raid5: measuring checksumming speed
   8regs     :   621.200 MB/sec
   32regs    :   368.000 MB/sec
   pII_mmx   :   849.600 MB/sec
   p5_mmx    :   826.000 MB/sec
raid5: using function: pII_mmx (849.600 MB/sec)
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
IP: routing cache hash table of 512 buckets, 4Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 1024 bind 2048)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 100k freed
BOOTLOADER: Mapping in physical locations
BOOTLOADER: load_addr=0xc2004000 ret_data=0xc2205cc4
BOOTLOADER: opening "/boot/vmlinux.bz2"
BOOTLOADER: reading "/boot/vmlinux.bz2"
BOOTLOADER: read 1319216bytes
BOOTLOADER: unmounting /
BOOTLOADER: calling reboot notifiers
md: stopping all md devices.
flushing ide devices: hda
BOOTLOADER: mapping 22M-32M for ride home
BOOTLOADER: disabling interrupts
BOOTLOADER: flushing cache
BOOTLOADER: Leap of faith!
Back in ramcode: done
Second stage kernel: Decompressing - done
command line: 'console=ttyS0,115200 debug ip=off '
booting kernel...
Linux version 2.6.36.2-cobalt (dave@binford2000) (gcc version 4.5.0 20100604 [gcc-4_5-branch revision 160292] (SUSE Linux) ) #2 Wed Dec 22 00:54:29 PST 2010
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
 BIOS-e801: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009f000 (usable)
 BIOS-e801: 0000000000100000 - 0000000010000000 (usable)
Notice: NX (Execute Disable) protection missing in CPU or disabled in BIOS!
DMI not present or invalid.
e820 update range: 0000000000000000 - 0000000000001000 (usable) ==> (reserved)
e820 remove range: 00000000000a0000 - 0000000000100000 (usable)
last_pfn = 0x10000 max_arch_pfn = 0x100000
initial memory mapped : 0 - 00800000
init_memory_mapping: 0000000000000000-0000000010000000
 0000000000 - 0000400000 page 4k
 0000400000 - 0010000000 page 2M
kernel direct mapping tables up to 10000000 @ 373000-377000
0MB HIGHMEM available.
256MB LOWMEM available.
  mapped low ram: 0 - 10000000
  low ram: 0 - 10000000
Zone PFN ranges:
  DMA      0x00000001 -> 0x00001000
  Normal   0x00001000 -> 0x00010000
  HighMem  empty
Movable zone start PFN for each node
early_node_map[2] active PFN ranges
    0: 0x00000001 -> 0x0000009f
    0: 0x00000100 -> 0x00010000
On node 0 totalpages: 65438
free_area_init_node: node 0, pgdat c03222b8, node_mem_map c1001020
  DMA zone: 32 pages used for memmap
  DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
  DMA zone: 3966 pages, LIFO batch:0
  Normal zone: 480 pages used for memmap
  Normal zone: 60960 pages, LIFO batch:15
Allocating PCI resources starting at 10000000 (gap: 10000000:f0000000)
Built 1 zonelists in Zone order, mobility grouping on.  Total pages: 64926
Kernel command line: console=ttyS0,115200 debug ip=off
PID hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Inode-cache hash table entries: 16384 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
Initializing CPU#0
Subtract (17 early reservations)
  #0 [0000100000 - 0000370dbc]   TEXT DATA BSS
  #1 [0000000800 - 0000100000]   BIOS reserved
  #2 [0000371000 - 0000373000]             BRK
  #3 [0001000000 - 0001001000]         BOOTMEM
  #4 [0001001000 - 0001201000]         BOOTMEM
  #5 [0001201000 - 0001201004]         BOOTMEM
  #6 [0001201020 - 00012010a0]         BOOTMEM
  #7 [00012010a0 - 00012010b8]         BOOTMEM
  #8 [00012010c0 - 00012018c0]         BOOTMEM
  #9 [00012018c0 - 0001201914]         BOOTMEM
  #10 [0001201920 - 0001201960]         BOOTMEM
  #11 [0001201960 - 00012019a0]         BOOTMEM
  #12 [00012019a0 - 00012019c3]         BOOTMEM
  #13 [00012019e0 - 0001201a03]         BOOTMEM
  #14 [0001201a20 - 0001202a20]         BOOTMEM
  #15 [0001202a20 - 0001222a20]         BOOTMEM
  #16 [0001222a20 - 0001232a20]         BOOTMEM
Initializing HighMem for node 0 (00000000:00000000)
Memory: 256360k/262144k available (1493k kernel code, 5392k reserved, 702k data, 184k init, 0k highmem)
virtual kernel memory layout:
    fixmap  : 0xfffe4000 - 0xfffff000   ( 108 kB)
    pkmap   : 0xff800000 - 0xffc00000   (4096 kB)
    vmalloc : 0xd0800000 - 0xff7fe000   ( 751 MB)
    lowmem  : 0xc0000000 - 0xd0000000   ( 256 MB)
      .init : 0xc0326000 - 0xc0354000   ( 184 kB)
      .data : 0xc02757d1 - 0xc0325280   ( 702 kB)
      .text : 0xc0100000 - 0xc02757d1   (1493 kB)
Checking if this processor honours the WP bit even in supervisor mode...Ok.
Hierarchical RCU implementation.
        RCU-based detection of stalled CPUs is disabled.
        Verbose stalled-CPUs detection is disabled.
NR_IRQS:16
console [ttyS0] enabled
Fast TSC calibration using PIT
Detected 448.225 MHz processor.
Calibrating delay loop (skipped), value calculated using timer frequency.. 896.45 BogoMIPS (lpj=1792900)
pid_max: default: 32768 minimum: 301
Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
Performance Events: no PMU driver, software events only.
CPU: AMD-K6(tm)-III Processor stepping 04
xor: measuring software checksum speed
   8regs     :   608.000 MB/sec
   8regs_prefetch:   538.000 MB/sec
   32regs    :   364.000 MB/sec
   32regs_prefetch:   321.000 MB/sec
   pII_mmx   :   982.000 MB/sec
   p5_mmx    :   947.000 MB/sec
xor: using function: pII_mmx (982.000 MB/sec)
NET: Registered protocol family 16
PCI: Using configuration type 1 for base access
bio: create slab <bio-0> at 0
raid6: int32x1     81 MB/s
raid6: int32x2     84 MB/s
raid6: int32x4    101 MB/s
raid6: int32x8     92 MB/s
raid6: mmxx1      230 MB/s
raid6: mmxx2      267 MB/s
raid6: using algorithm mmxx2 (267 MB/s)
vgaarb: loaded
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
pci 0000:00:00.0: reg 10: [mem 0xf8000000-0xfbffffff]
pci 0000:00:02.0: reg 10: [mem 0xf7fff000-0xf7ffffff]
pci 0000:00:03.0: reg 10: [io  0x6000-0x603f]
pci 0000:00:03.0: reg 14: [io  0x3a80-0x3a9f]
pci 0000:00:03.0: quirk: [io  0x0c80-0x0c9f] claimed by ali7101 SMB
pci 0000:00:0e.0: reg 10: [io  0xfe00-0xfeff]
pci 0000:00:0e.0: reg 14: [mem 0xf7ffef00-0xf7ffefff]
pci 0000:00:0e.0: reg 18: [mem 0xf7ffd000-0xf7ffdfff]
pci 0000:00:0e.0: reg 30: [mem 0x00000000-0x00003fff pref]
pci 0000:00:0f.0: reg 10: [io  0xfdf8-0xfdff]
pci 0000:00:0f.0: reg 14: [io  0xfdf4-0xfdf7]
pci 0000:00:0f.0: reg 18: [io  0xfde8-0xfdef]
pci 0000:00:0f.0: reg 1c: [io  0xfde4-0xfde7]
pci 0000:00:0f.0: reg 20: [io  0xfdd0-0xfddf]
pci 0000:00:10.0: reg 10: [io  0xfc00-0xfcff]
pci 0000:00:10.0: reg 14: [mem 0xf7ffc000-0xf7ffcfff]
pci 0000:00:10.0: reg 30: [mem 0x00000000-0x0000ffff pref]
pci 0000:00:10.0: supports D1 D2
pci 0000:00:10.0: PME# supported from D0 D1 D2 D3hot
pci 0000:00:10.0: PME# disabled
pci 0000:00:12.0: reg 10: [io  0xfb00-0xfbff]
pci 0000:00:12.0: reg 14: [mem 0xf7ffb000-0xf7ffbfff]
pci 0000:00:12.0: reg 30: [mem 0x00000000-0x0000ffff pref]
pci 0000:00:12.0: supports D1 D2
pci 0000:00:12.0: PME# supported from D0 D1 D2 D3hot
pci 0000:00:12.0: PME# disabled
pci 0000:00:14.0: reg 10: [io  0xfaf8-0xfaff]
pci 0000:00:14.0: reg 14: [io  0xfaf4-0xfaf7]
pci 0000:00:14.0: reg 18: [io  0xfae8-0xfaef]
pci 0000:00:14.0: reg 1c: [io  0xfae4-0xfae7]
pci 0000:00:14.0: reg 20: [io  0xfad0-0xfadf]
pci 0000:00:14.0: reg 24: [mem 0xf7ffac00-0xf7ffafff]
pci 0000:00:14.0: reg 30: [mem 0x00000000-0x0007ffff pref]
pci 0000:00:14.0: supports D1 D2
pci 0000:00:01.0: PCI bridge to [bus 01-01]
pci 0000:00:01.0:   bridge window [io  0xf000-0x0000] (disabled)
pci 0000:00:01.0:   bridge window [mem 0xfff00000-0x000fffff] (disabled)
pci 0000:00:01.0:   bridge window [mem 0xfff00000-0x000fffff pref] (disabled)
PCI: pci_cache_line_size set to 32 bytes
reserve RAM buffer: 000000000009f000 - 000000000009ffff
Switching to clocksource tsc
pci 0000:00:14.0: BAR 6: assigned [mem 0x10000000-0x1007ffff pref]
pci 0000:00:10.0: BAR 6: assigned [mem 0x10080000-0x1008ffff pref]
pci 0000:00:12.0: BAR 6: assigned [mem 0x10090000-0x1009ffff pref]
pci 0000:00:0e.0: BAR 6: assigned [mem 0x100a0000-0x100a3fff pref]
pci 0000:00:01.0: PCI bridge to [bus 01-01]
pci 0000:00:01.0:   bridge window [io  disabled]
pci 0000:00:01.0:   bridge window [mem disabled]
pci 0000:00:01.0:   bridge window [mem pref disabled]
pci_bus 0000:00: resource 0 [io  0x0000-0xffff]
pci_bus 0000:00: resource 1 [mem 0x00000000-0xffffffff]
NET: Registered protocol family 2
IP route cache hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
TCP established hash table entries: 8192 (order: 4, 65536 bytes)
TCP bind hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 8192 bind 8192)
TCP reno registered
UDP hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
UDP-Lite hash table entries: 256 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
pci 0000:00:07.0: Activating ISA DMA hang workarounds
PCI: CLS 32 bytes, default 32
platform rtc_cmos: registered platform RTC device (no PNP device found)
VFS: Disk quotas dquot_6.5.2
Dquot-cache hash table entries: 1024 (order 0, 4096 bytes)
msgmni has been set to 500
io scheduler noop registered
io scheduler deadline registered (default)
Serial: 8250/16550 driver, 2 ports, IRQ sharing disabled
serial8250: ttyS0 at I/O 0x3f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
serial8250: ttyS1 at I/O 0x2f8 (irq = 3) is a 16550A
loop: module loaded
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver
alim15x3 0000:00:0f.0: IDE controller (0x10b9:0x5229 rev 0xc1)
alim15x3 0000:00:0f.0: 100% native mode on irq 14
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xfdd0-0xfdd7
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xfdd8-0xfddf
Probing IDE interface ide0...
Clocksource tsc unstable (delta = 83998658 ns)
Switching to clocksource pit
hda: ST340810A, ATA DISK drive
hda: host max PIO5 wanted PIO255(auto-tune) selected PIO4
hda: UDMA/33 mode selected
Probing IDE interface ide1...
ide0 at 0xfdf8-0xfdff,0xfdf6 on irq 14
ide1 at 0xfde8-0xfdef,0xfde6 on irq 15
ide-gd driver 1.18
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: 78165360 sectors (40020 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63
hda: cache flushes not supported
 hda: hda1 hda2
md: linear personality registered for level -1
md: raid0 personality registered for level 0
md: raid1 personality registered for level 1
md: raid10 personality registered for level 10
md: raid6 personality registered for level 6
md: raid5 personality registered for level 5
md: raid4 personality registered for level 4
TCP cubic registered
Cobalt system type is Carmel
Cobalt Networks ACPI driver 1.0 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
Cobalt Networks LED driver 1.0 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
Cobalt Networks LCD driver 4.0 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
Cobalt Networks Serial Number driver 1.6 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
Cobalt Networks Watchdog Timer driver 1.0 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
Cobalt Networks Sensor driver 1.0 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
Cobalt Networks RAM Info driver 1.0 (modified by jeff@404ster.com)
md: Waiting for all devices to be available before autodetect
md: If you don't use raid, use raid=noautodetect
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: Scanned 0 and added 0 devices.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
EXT3-fs: barriers not enabled
kjournald starting.  Commit interval 5 seconds
EXT3-fs (hda1): mounted filesystem with writeback data mode
VFS: Mounted root (ext3 filesystem) readonly on device 3:1.
Freeing unused kernel memory: 184k freed
INIT: version 2.88 booting

   OpenRC 0.9.4 is starting up Gentoo Linux (i586)

 * Mounting /proc ...

[Davesworld]

You will never be able to boot to anything other than something connected to the built in IDE controller. It may be possible to have root on the sata however. To do so, your controller driver and filesystem module MUST  be in the kernel image and not be loadable modules for any chance of this working. I do know for sure that /boot must be on an ide connected to one of the ide headers be it a spinning platter drive, CF or DOM. Nice thing about /boot is it is read once on boot and loaded into ram so it won't see much read/write activity like a /home or /var partition would. I use TMPFS for /tmp usually so it plays in ram. You can put 1GB of ram in these but your kernel has to have HIGHMEM capability in order to use the full 1GB.

Also you need a link to your desired kernel image called vmlinux.bz2 and a link to the matching system map called System.map. You likely have links to the oldest kernel, with no links normally it shouldn't boot at all but if it did eventually, it likely read the lowest number first and loaded that after a delay. The rom looks for vmlinux.bz2 or gz and System.map first even if they are only links. Linking to the image and map is the surest way to boot the kernel you intend to and without a huge delay.

I put the versioning in the names for visibility and then link to them. It's the best way I have found and it allows multiple kernels that you can link to at your desire.

[Zito]

Only one disk was swapped to SATA. The ATA one cointain whole system in one partition.
Problem with SATA disk its not important right now.


My /boot looks like this:

Code:

debian:/tmp/hda1# ls -la boot/
total 8076
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root     4096 Dec 13 06:31 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 root root     4096 Dec 13 06:30 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root root        0 Dec  6 04:39 .keep
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root       32 Dec 13 06:31 System.map -> /boot/System.map-2.6.36.2-cobalt
-rw-r--r--   1 root root   839379 Dec 22  2010 System.map-2.6.36.2-cobalt
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  1087269 Jun  5  2011 System.map-2.6.39.1-cobalt
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  1060176 Oct  2 18:19 System.map-3.0.4-cobalt
-rwxr-xr-x   1  500 users 1319216 Dec 22  2010 vmlinux-2.6.36.2-cobalt.bz2
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root  1986448 Jun  5  2011 vmlinux-2.6.39.1-cobalt.bz2
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root  1936698 Oct  2 18:19 vmlinux-3.0.4-cobalt.bz2
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root root       33 Dec 13 06:31 vmlinux.bz2 -> /boot/vmlinux-2.6.36.2-cobalt.bz2

And i change the links (or creating just fresh /boot alc /lib/modules from your packages). And only vmlinux-2.6.36.2 can start system.

I create full backup of working Genotoo+3.0.4. And now after i did what i describe in 1st post.. it wont boot anymore.
I don't think its related to distribution, cause h/w even not try start kernel. Its more like 'something' in original cmos was configured, and now its gone. Weird..

[Zito]

It back to work now.. after i restore CMOS again, boot once after 'set_mem_limit = 128' and 'lapic_on' (after this, system hangup). Weird.. but its works now. All kernels in /boot are bootable now.

Only different in boot log is:

Code:

  Host Bus: 0 (device 19:00) [33MHz]

before:

Code:

  Host Bus: 0 (device 19:02) [33MHz]

@Davesworld

Is community around cobalt's hardware already dead? Have you any statistics how many users still use eg. your distribution?

[Davesworld]

Surprisingly there are still quite a few out there determined to squeeze every bit of useful life out of these devices but interest will eventually die down I suspect within the next ten years. For me it was a no-brainer four years ago, modest but more than adequate processing power, nice sculped front with LCD display, two nics, a pci slot for expansion, headless and in the case of the 3000 series, typically about 12 watts power used.

Since I needed a server and I already knew how to make a distro run on these devices, a month after my first Raq4i was running IPCop, I went with an XTR and ran 500GB Hitachi drives in Raid 5. Switched from Centos to Debian a year ago and couldn't ask for a better distro to run a server from. I have a second XTR that I play with and have successfully ran SATA drives with adapters in an IDE drive bay. The XTR with it's four slide out drives under the front panel which is hinged and either an 850mhz or 1ghz Pentium III makes the best server of any of the Cobalts. I run XFS for my RAID 5 storage partition. I have a dual Intel Gigabit nic in the PCI-X slot and have pulled large files through with well over 200mbs. I'm only running one port. May do two for redundancy.

As far as number of people running my distro which is a Cobalt adaptation of IPCop, depends on whether you count the previous generation and the new current generation which is only a few months old. I could safely say at least in the hundreds. There are many sticking with the 1.4 series until URLfilter finishes being incorporated into 2.x.x. I myself miss it but it's coming. Some web sites hang waiting for their ad content to be fetched. I find sites load faster without the ads. I do not prefer to run adfilters as extensions to web browsers. The only one I do that with now is Konqueror because it's a built in feature if you feed it a list.