Hardware: Dell Inspiron 4100 with one 1.0Ghz Pentium III Mobile, ATI Radeon
Mobile (16 Mb), 256 Mb memory, 20 Gb disc, etc. Has a PIIX-4.
Software: SuSE v7.3 generic kernel (2.4.10 with good SuSE hacks). Also
kernel 2.4.16 and self-compiled 2.4.10 (with CONFIG_X86_UP_APIC and
CONFIG_X86_LOCAL_APIC turned on).
Issue: Affected kernels hang at non-repeatable places about 20 secs into
the boot process.
URL: http://www.math.ucla.edu/~jimc/insp4100/kernel/apic.html
(for config, boot messages, etc)
It always dies; just the place is variable. The hang occurs as early as
fsck (if it's actually checking the FS), or later when one or another
daemon is starting. Boot messages indicate that the APIC was recognized
and initialized. If a kernel is built whose configuration differs only
in omitting CONFIG_X86_UP_APIC (with the consequence that
CONFIG_X86_LOCAL_APIC is also omitted), the kernel will work perfectly
(tested for 2.4.16). CONFIG_X86_UP_IOAPIC was not set and there is no
evidence one way or the other about the I/O APIC.
During SuSE 7.3 installation (i.e. boot from the included floppy, not
using YaST2 on the original system to upgrade), the system will stay up
longer than 20 secs but dies within 5 minutes. No exceptions. Booting
with the noapic parameter does not suppress the freeze. (This test was
with the rescue system booted off the CD.)
When it's hung, the magic SysRq key has no effect, and you can't ping
a system whose Ethernet connection was functioning just before the hang.
However, the APM BIOS is able to turn on the fan. It would appear that
the machine is in an infinite loop that uses CPU electrical resources.
I'm trying to install SuSE 7.3. Since the generic kernel won't run, my
workaround will be to use YaST2 in the 7.2 background to ``upgrade'' the
system to 7.3. I will back up the 2.4.4 kernel and modules, and will
reject its offer to run LILO. If that doesn't work, I will hardwire CD
support into the kernel (so no modules are needed to boot), extract the
initrd off the CD onto the root hard disc partition, and set up a LILO
stanza which uses that initrd with my own kernel.
Crossposted to: SuSE customer support; Ingo Molnar