Re: 2.6.38.3 and 2.6.39-rc4 hangs after "Booting the kernel" on quad Pentium Pro system

[Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>]

> All result in the same behaviour and I'm somewhat at a loss
> as to how to debug this further, being a sysadmin rather than
> a real kernel hacker. :-(
> 
> I've attached the 2.6.39-rc4 kernel config from point 4, and
> the kernel config for the working Debian kernel (2.6.18-6-686).
> 
> I've also attached the contents of /proc/cpuinfo, /proc/io*,
> /proc/scsi/scsi, /proc/modules and the output of lspci -vvv
> and of dmesg from Debian Sarge running the Debian Etch kernel
> (2.6.18-6-686).
> 
> This box has given me good service over the past 8 years or
> so and I'd hate to have to retire it now due to this when I
> feel Linux should still work on it..
> 
> Any ideas please ?

earlyprintk=vga

(or better yet earlyprintk=ttyS0 and a serial port)

There are a couple of PPro funnies - there's an area of memory that
must be excluded due to a chip errata and I seem to remember some PPro
boxes also having slightly quirking E820 (BIOS memory reporting behaviour)


Alan