Arch Linux

bananabrain

Member

From: England

Registered: 2010-05-07

Posts: 78

[SOLVED] Broken system after 2.6.39 kernel upgrade

My home workstation hasn't booted successfully since the first .39 kernel was released a couple of weeks ago and I've been unable to find out why.

Initially I was getting randomly different symptoms, the most common being a system freeze at "loading udev uevents...", but also the machine would sometimes freeze after a stream of output looking something like this (the final output is never the same from one boot to the next):

[   35.?????] [<????????>] ? do_page_fault+0x417/0x420
[   35.?????] [<????????>] ? task_rq_locl+0x47/0x80
[   35.?????] [<????????>] ? vmalloc_sync_all+0x120/0x120
[   35.?????] [<????????>] ? error_code+0x67/0x6c
[   35.?????] [<????????>] ? acpi_processor_power_init+0xe1/0x12a [processor]
[   35.?????] [<????????>] ? acpi_processor_add+0x3f6/0x498 [processor]
[   35.?????] [<????????>] ---[ end trace 479c39d38c16444 ]---

Then again, sometimes the machine would boot to a root shell, but without network services and without a proper nvidia frame buffer.

While there are plenty of online references to systems hanging at udev module loading, I've found none applicable to my situation.   

After pulling my data off the disks I reinstalled as normal using the default netinstall iso. The installation went smoothly until the first system boot which failed as described above.

I then installed using the 2011.06.10-netinstall-i686.iso from releng.archlinux.org - same result.

Tonight I installed from scratch using 2011.06.10-core-i686.iso and everything went without a hitch, including booting into the new base system running a 2.6.38 kernel.

After configuring my network, `pacman -Syu` reported only five packages requiring upgrade:

  coreutils-8.12-3
  cronie-1.4.7-9
  initscripts-2011.06.4-1
  mkinitcpio-0.6.15-1
  kernel26-2.6.39.1-1

I installed each of these in turn, rebooting after each package in an attempt to find which is causing the problems. I had a usable system after every package had been installed except the last, kernel26-2.6.39.1-1. After this I was back with a broken computer. The only pacnew file I had to deal with was mkinitcpio.conf, where the changes weren't applicable to me anyway. A look at the system logs after booting the install CD and mounting the broken system partitions only seem to show entries from the boots before the kernel upgrade.

There's nothing exotic about this machine:

Intel D865GBF mobo
Dual Core Pentium 4, 3.2GHz
2GB ram
nVidia GEForce 6200 (NV44A)
2TB SATA drive
Adaptec 2940UW w/plextor CDROM

If anyone can can help me discover what it is in this latest kernel that breaks my mackine I'll be very grateful. I'm at the end of my capabilities.

Failing that it's back to debian, God help us,  until a working kernel is released, (if ever)...

Last edited by bananabrain (2011-06-22 02:53:19)

sliposk

Member

Registered: 2010-08-19

Posts: 46

Re: [SOLVED] Broken system after 2.6.39 kernel upgrade

With That MB (D865GBF) you will need to go to the Bios and turn off hyperthreading , Or put ( acpi=off) after the kernel line ( that will disable hyperthreading) That is the only way I can boot my D865GLC with a 3.2 ghz p4 with the Nvidia 6200 . By the way there is No such thing as a Dual Core Pentium 4 .

bananabrain

Member

From: England

Registered: 2010-05-07

Posts: 78

Re: [SOLVED] Broken system after 2.6.39 kernel upgrade

Well... my first thought was nonsense, I haven't been near the bios. But of course I have - I had a bit of a dabble with virtualbox back in April and turned on hyperthreading support. Now I'm kicking myself for not remembering this all important detail.

Even if I had remembered though, I wouldn't have immediately have jumped to that as a solution; the kicker here is that up until kernel 2.6.39, that bios setting didn't matter. A valid question can still be asked, "what have the kernel devs done to scupper support for hyperthreading on intel (only?) motherboards?"

There's little else to say, except that you're a hero and I wish I could buy you a couple of beers.

Since you have the same motherboard, do you know why it won't boot a USB stick when the bios and notes suggest otherwise?

Thanks again.

sliposk

Member

Registered: 2010-08-19

Posts: 46

Re: [SOLVED] Broken system after 2.6.39 kernel upgrade

Im glad it worked for you . I only have problems like this on old Intel only 865 MBs. And this started when I installed kernel 2.6.39 before that it was fine.  And I think someone has filed a bug report. I have a Dell 3000 with a 865 chipset and a Nvidia 6200 and HT works fine.So I dont have a clue on how to resolve this untill a new kernel is released or pached.