[SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

tarun.hellknight · 2011-06-27 19:40:39

Hey guys. I was out for a month and when I updated my system after a month I saw a new file /etc/rc.conf.pacnew. I reconfigured it according to my old rc.conf file and also according to the new wiki entries. But now, it is giving me sheer headaches with kernel modules. I'm posting the file here, please see it and tell me what's wrong.

rc.conf

#
# /etc/rc.conf - Main Configuration for Arch Linux
#

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# LOCALIZATION
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# LOCALE: available languages can be listed with the 'locale -a' command
# DAEMON_LOCALE: If set to 'yes', use $LOCALE as the locale during daemon
# startup and during the boot process. If set to 'no', the C locale is used.
# HARDWARECLOCK: set to "UTC" or "localtime", any other value will result
#   in the hardware clock being left untouched (useful for virtualization)
#   Note: Using "localtime" is discouraged.
# TIMEZONE: timezones are found in /usr/share/zoneinfo
# KEYMAP: keymaps are found in /usr/share/kbd/keymaps
# CONSOLEFONT: found in /usr/share/kbd/consolefonts (only needed for non-US)
# CONSOLEMAP: found in /usr/share/kbd/consoletrans
# USECOLOR: use ANSI color sequences in startup messages
# VERBOSE: Verbose level (from 1 to 8). man 3 syslog for level info
#
LOCALE="en_US.UTF-8"
DAEMON_LOCALE="no"
HARDWARECLOCK="localtime"
TIMEZONE="Asia/Kolkata"
KEYMAP="us"
CONSOLEFONT=
CONSOLEMAP=
USECOLOR="yes"
VERBOSE="3"

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# HARDWARE
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# MODULES: Modules to load at boot-up. Blacklisting is no longer supported.
#   Replace every !module by an entry as on the following line in a file in
#   /etc/modprobe.d:
#     blacklist module
#   See "man modprobe.conf" for details.
#
#MODULES=()
MODULES=(acpi-cpufreq powernow-k8 cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_powersave vboxdrv vboxnetflt usblp it87 addt7475 k10temp)
# Udev settle timeout (default to 30)
UDEV_TIMEOUT=30

# Scan for FakeRAID (dmraid) Volumes at startup
USEDMRAID="no"

# Scan for BTRFS volumes at startup
USEBTRFS="no"

# Scan for LVM volume groups at startup, required if you use LVM
USELVM="no"

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# NETWORKING
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# HOSTNAME: Hostname of machine. Should also be put in /etc/hosts
#
HOSTNAME="AX-64"

# Use 'ip addr' or 'ls /sys/class/net/' to see all available interfaces.
#
# Wired network setup
#   - interface: name of device (required)
#   - address: IP address (leave blank for DHCP)
#   - netmask: subnet mask (ignored for DHCP)
#   - gateway: default route (ignored for DHCP)
# 
# Static IP example
# interface=eth0
# address=192.168.0.2
# netmask=255.255.255.0
# gateway=192.168.0.1
#
# DHCP example
# interface=eth0
# address=
# netmask=
# gateway=

interface=eth0
address=
netmask=
gateway=

# Setting this to "yes" will skip network shutdown.
# This is required if your root device is on NFS.
NETWORK_PERSIST="no"

# Enable these netcfg profiles at boot-up. These are useful if you happen to
# need more advanced network features than the simple network service
# supports, such as multiple network configurations (ie, laptop users)
#   - set to 'menu' to present a menu during boot-up (dialog package required)
#   - prefix an entry with a ! to disable it
#
# Network profiles are found in /etc/network.d
#
# This requires the netcfg package
#
#NETWORKS=(main)

# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
# DAEMONS
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------
#
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
#   - prefix a daemon with a ! to disable it
#   - prefix a daemon with a @ to start it up in the background
#
# If something other takes care of your hardware clock (ntpd, dual-boot...)
# you should disable 'hwclock' here.
#
DAEMONS=(hwclock @acpid syslog-ng network netfs dkms_autoinstaller sensors sshd @crond @alsa dbus hal kdm @cpufreq @cpu)

The thing is that, when I disable the custom modules in the file, the CPU runs at full speed with loads of errors displayed while booting. And when I comment the MODULES section, it says that it fails to load modules.

Last edited by tarun.hellknight (2011-06-30 09:17:15)

hokasch · 2011-06-27 20:12:33

Did you rebuild the vboxdrv module for the new kernel? If vboxdrv is not the culprit, try loading them manually with modprobe to see where it fails (modprobe -av to load the whole array).

tarun.hellknight · 2011-06-28 17:24:22

Yeah.. I recompiled them successfully.. but still no success.. if I uncomment the usual MODULES=() section, then the CPU starts running at full speed and I get loads of errors. But if I uncomment my custom modules line, then it says loading of modules failed but CPU speed is automatically varied by the governor. Would you mind posting the layout of your rc.conf file?

Inxsible · 2011-06-28 17:39:18

Try one module at a time and see which one fails during boot up. Once you find that, see if that module is necessary for you or not.

tarun.hellknight · 2011-06-28 21:02:44

I also noticed that my KDE applications like AmaroK & digiKam crash just after launching them.. It must be attributed to the modules.. Can you post the output of your rc.conf file?

Inxsible · 2011-06-28 21:42:17

have you tried what I suggested in my previous post?

tarun.hellknight · 2011-06-29 13:43:55

Yeah.. it doesn't elaborates anything.. usually, all the modules are necessary.. even disabling vboxdrv modules doesn't helps..

Inxsible · 2011-06-29 14:00:41

so you are saying that none of the modules fail during load?

Its going to be really difficult to help you if you don't try things out or at least explain in detail what you did and what the results were

tarun.hellknight · 2011-06-29 19:38:09

No what I meant was that it wasn't helping.. like I disabled VirtualBox modules permanently until I find a solution.. I also disabled the usblp module as it is for my printer and I don't require it often.. But it started giving me problems with the cpu power governors.. When I added MOD_AUTOLOAD="yes" line to rc.conf & commented my custom modules line, it started detecting and loading the modules automatically. But when it tried to load the CPU power governors, it started giving these errors..

Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: /dev/sda:
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:  setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254)
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:  APM_level
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: 
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: /dev/sdb:
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:  setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254)
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:  APM_level
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: Error setting new values. Common errors:
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Do you have proper administration rights? (super-user?)
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Is the governor you requested available and modprobed?
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Trying to set an invalid policy?
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Trying to set a specific frequency, but userspace governor is not available,
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:    for example because of hardware which cannot be set to a specific frequency
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:    or because the userspace governor isn't loaded?
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: Error setting new values. Common errors:
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Do you have proper administration rights? (super-user?)
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Is the governor you requested available and modprobed?
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Trying to set an invalid policy?
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Trying to set a specific frequency, but userspace governor is not available,
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:    for example because of hardware which cannot be set to a specific frequency
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:    or because the userspace governor isn't loaded?
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: Error setting new values. Common errors:
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Do you have proper administration rights? (super-user?)
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Is the governor you requested available and modprobed?
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Trying to set an invalid policy?
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Trying to set a specific frequency, but userspace governor is not available,
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:    for example because of hardware which cannot be set to a specific frequency
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:    or because the userspace governor isn't loaded?
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: Error setting new values. Common errors:
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Do you have proper administration rights? (super-user?)
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Is the governor you requested available and modprobed?
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Trying to set an invalid policy?
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011: - Trying to set a specific frequency, but userspace governor is not available,
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:    for example because of hardware which cannot be set to a specific frequency
Tue Jun 28 00:54:05 2011:    or because the userspace governor isn't loaded?

Last edited by tarun.hellknight (2011-06-29 19:39:29)

Inxsible · 2011-06-29 19:56:25

You really need to read up on the changes made to rc.conf. The variable MOD_AUTOLOAD has been deprecated. Do not use it...AT ALL

Trying random combinations of things is the worst thing to do for your system and for those trying to help you. Changing configurations in the middle of a thread confuses people who are not sitting in front of your system, because we no longer know which combination of settings is giving you errors. You started off by saying that you get "loads of errors while booting" but yet you are unwilling to individually try each module and see which one is failing.

Most modules are now auto-loaded by default. All blacklisting (if any) is also handled by a conf file under modprobe.d. rc.conf no longer handles that.
Once again, I urge you to merge the rc.conf.pacnew with rc.conf. Then do and system wide update. Then if you still have problems let us know in detail

tarun.hellknight · 2011-06-29 20:11:05

I'm really sorry for confusing you, but with the loads of errors I meant these errors. I'm not using MOD_AUTOLOAD currently. I just tried tinkering with it. I've disabled it right now. I'm rebooting my system right now starting with one module at a time again..

tarun.hellknight · 2011-06-29 20:28:21

OK I've narrowed down the problem. The vboxdrv & vboxnetflt are working fine. VirtualBox is running now. Mainly, the problem is with these four acpi-cpufreq powernow-k8 cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_powersave. I installed these modules a long time back because my processor was at 100% all the time, 3 GHz. And it gives me the same error

Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: /dev/sda:
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:  setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254)
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:  APM_level
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: 
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: /dev/sdb:
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:  setting Advanced Power Management level to 0xfe (254)
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:  APM_level
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: Error setting new values. Common errors:
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Do you have proper administration rights? (super-user?)
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Is the governor you requested available and modprobed?
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Trying to set an invalid policy?
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Trying to set a specific frequency, but userspace governor is not available,
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:    for example because of hardware which cannot be set to a specific frequency
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:    or because the userspace governor isn't loaded?
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: Error setting new values. Common errors:
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Do you have proper administration rights? (super-user?)
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Is the governor you requested available and modprobed?
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Trying to set an invalid policy?
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Trying to set a specific frequency, but userspace governor is not available,
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:    for example because of hardware which cannot be set to a specific frequency
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:    or because the userspace governor isn't loaded?
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: Error setting new values. Common errors:
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Do you have proper administration rights? (super-user?)
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Is the governor you requested available and modprobed?
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Trying to set an invalid policy?
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Trying to set a specific frequency, but userspace governor is not available,
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:    for example because of hardware which cannot be set to a specific frequency
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:    or because the userspace governor isn't loaded?
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: Error setting new values. Common errors:
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Do you have proper administration rights? (super-user?)
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Is the governor you requested available and modprobed?
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Trying to set an invalid policy?
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011: - Trying to set a specific frequency, but userspace governor is not available,
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:    for example because of hardware which cannot be set to a specific frequency
Thu Jun 30 01:49:25 2011:    or because the userspace governor isn't loaded?

But when I uncomment this line

MODULES=(acpi-cpufreq powernow-k8 cpufreq_ondemand cpufreq_powersave vboxdrv vboxnetflt usblp it87 addt7475 k10temp), it says in the boot process, module loading failed but CPU usage is then governed by cpufreq_ondemand governor.

And then it runs normally at 800 MHz but other modules fail to load.

lukaszan · 2011-06-29 22:17:28

You really are making us work hard for it...

Remove the four problem modules from MODULES array, reboot, and then load each of them manually

modprobe <module name>

Post any error messages and/or relevant kernel.log messages.

What processor are you running ? Does your motherboard support it ?

tarun.hellknight · 2011-06-30 08:58:36

Absolutely my motherboard supports my processor that's why I'm running it since last 2 years..

Here's the config

AMD Athlon II X4 640 3.0 GHz
Biostar TA 790 GX BE motherboard
2x2 GB Kingston DDR2 RAM @ 800 MHz
Samsung 1 TB HDD + Samsung 500 GB Green series HDD (Both SATA)
Sony DRU 870 S DVD Writer (SATA)
Palit GTX 260 Core 216 Sonic Edition
AOC F22 Full HD LCD

tarun.hellknight · 2011-06-30 09:04:54

I permanently remove acpi-freq module as it was not required for AMD processors. I also removed the k10temp, it87 addt7475 beacuse they were for temperature monitoring, which I don't really need now. When I modprobed the module, as you said, this was the output of tail -f /var/log/messages.log

sudo modprobe powernow-k8
Jun 30 14:24:40 localhost kernel: [  294.245260] powernow-k8: Found 1 AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 640 Processor (4 cpu cores) (version 2.20.00)
Jun 30 14:24:40 localhost kernel: [  294.245297] powernow-k8:    0 : pstate 0 (3000 MHz)
Jun 30 14:24:40 localhost kernel: [  294.245299] powernow-k8:    1 : pstate 1 (2300 MHz)
Jun 30 14:24:40 localhost kernel: [  294.245300] powernow-k8:    2 : pstate 2 (1800 MHz)
Jun 30 14:24:40 localhost kernel: [  294.245302] powernow-k8:    3 : pstate 3 (800 MHz)

There were no messages for cpufreq_ondemand or cpufreq_powersave

tarun.hellknight · 2011-06-30 09:16:31

Ok problem got solved. It seems that when I uninstalled lm_sensors app, the problem got solved. It also removed k10temp, it87 & addt7475 from system it seems. Thanks for your help guys. I'm sorry if I gave you a lot of trouble.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-06-27 19:40:39

[SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#2 2011-06-27 20:12:33

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#3 2011-06-28 17:24:22

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#4 2011-06-28 17:39:18

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#5 2011-06-28 21:02:44

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#6 2011-06-28 21:42:17

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#7 2011-06-29 13:43:55

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#8 2011-06-29 14:00:41

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#9 2011-06-29 19:38:09

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#10 2011-06-29 19:56:25

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#11 2011-06-29 20:11:05

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#12 2011-06-29 20:28:21

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#13 2011-06-29 22:17:28

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#14 2011-06-30 08:58:36

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#15 2011-06-30 09:04:54

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

#16 2011-06-30 09:16:31

Re: [SOLVED]Layout of /etc/rc.conf giving headaches with kernel modules

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