Linux being Lame
Enverex
Worcester, UK Icrontian
Linux refuses to boot the kernel when my Highpoint 372 controler is turned on.
Sounds a bit generalised that I say "Linux" but I really do mean Linux in it's entirity, I have tried Debian, Gentoo, Some other random distro, I have tried 2.4, 2.6 and another different 2.4.... none of them work.
Basically, as soon as it checks all the drives connected, it breaks and Kernel Panics with the line "Tried to kill init!".
This is happening off the boot disks, not the drive, as the drive is empty, the controler is just acting as a seperate ATA controler (4 Hard-Drives, 3 Optical drives and a Zip drive in this machine).
So basically, why is it crashing out? I mean it doesn't even need to use the controler, but it just sees it and ****s itself up.
Any ideas?
Sounds a bit generalised that I say "Linux" but I really do mean Linux in it's entirity, I have tried Debian, Gentoo, Some other random distro, I have tried 2.4, 2.6 and another different 2.4.... none of them work.
Basically, as soon as it checks all the drives connected, it breaks and Kernel Panics with the line "Tried to kill init!".
This is happening off the boot disks, not the drive, as the drive is empty, the controler is just acting as a seperate ATA controler (4 Hard-Drives, 3 Optical drives and a Zip drive in this machine).
So basically, why is it crashing out? I mean it doesn't even need to use the controler, but it just sees it and ****s itself up.
Any ideas?
0
Comments
So, our milage differs. Sorry, but you need a kernel with a highpoint support that matches your RAID BIOS and firmware version.
John.
I'm going to write to one of the Debian mailing lists and see what they say, but it would be nice to see a solution here...
[edit] Which kernel revision?
Most debian users have had trouble with that raid controller's handling of dma. This was dated back in January, with 2.4.21pre3-ac4, so I assume that it was fixed.
Also, is it possible for you to quote a snippet of your drivers/ide/hpt366.c?
Grep for "const char 100"
Please read the initial post. I can't post a grep of anything as I can't get ANY boot disks to boot, not the Gentoo 2.4 LiveCD, no the Gentoo 2.6 LiveCD, not the Debian Woody 2.4 latest Netinst CD, not the latest Debian normal install CD, nothing, they all kernel panic as soon as they detect "hde" (or hdf if I have a second drive on the controller).
All I ever get is - "Kernel Panic: Tried to kill init!"
The latest Windows BIOS does not get along with kernel 2.4.22 and earlier real well,unless custom compiled.
So, you cannot boot in failsafe, or in an Enterprise variant???
If you can boot in Enterprise, then you might be having partly a RAM limit issue. I casnnot boot in regular Linux here, as have 1 GIG RAM, and the normal Linux kernel literally cannot map 1 GIG and panics with a panic followed by a pie dump in Mandrake. Basicly, regular Linux tries to map the RAID to a memory point higher than the memory mapper can handle. This is a kinda common thing, and one way you can get exactly what you have happening. essentially it is a lack of a LARGE_MEM module running in the normal kernel that causes this.
An Enterprise variant kernel might also have an HPT 372 driver that works as abuiltin, which is th othr way this can happen, as many normal Linux kernels do not have that module precompiled in. The ac3 subvariant mentioned above is an Alan Cox tuned kernel, he has been working on HPT and RAID among other things. One way folks have gotten Linux to boot is to disable RAID, boot, load Linux to an IDE drive, and then compile a kernel with HPT support, reboot and on reboot re-enable the RAID, and let kernel come up with HPT support. Write down your RAID subBIOS settings before you disable RAID, please.
On a new board, the BIOS has been updated to a more modern RAID subBIOS rev than Highpoint supports with Linux. I have also seen some boards that simply do not have a full RAID subBIOS, instead they have one tuned for XP and that is more modern than is available for Linux as to RAID subBIOS rev. Email highpoint, ask them to play catchup with the Linux BIOS\firmware for your board. Fix has to come from HighPoint, then perk to your board mfr, then your board mfr needs to apply to a BIOS rev.
Sorry, fix varies based on RAID subBIOS version present in BIOS supplied by motherboard mfr. AND, Highpoint Technologies is concentrating on Windows subBIOS work much more than Linux dev.
Try Knoppix if version 3.3 or more recent is out, that is a live CD also. "Knopper" has been working on getting Knoppix usable with RAID also.
John.
An ISO burned in Nero, with a normal ISO burn, will not boot right. You need a special burn, used to be a special ISO burn; Mode 2, block size 2K (2048 byte block size), Rockridge burn worked, have not tried anything else with Nero 5.5-6.0 and the live CDs ISOs I burn work. I can also get dual Rockridge\Joliet (Joliet is default for Widnwos, Rockridge for Linux) filesystem CDs to work and use those for sharing files back and forth from Linux and Windows.
So, next question-- can Linux find its files, or did you get a Joliet CD burned by mistake??? Next Question. When Live is loading, can you press ESC key and get a boot: prompt with an Enterprise kernel option???
Does a Mandrake Linux download edition, version 9.2, load??? Will a Knoppix, when ESC'd let you have a LARGE_MEM module or an HPT module, or an Enterprise kernel option???
John-- who has SuSE 9.0 Personal and Mandrake 9.2 PowerPack running with an HPT 372 on board two boxes, as cold-swap boot options.
I wont need to run any special memory limiting programs as I am only using 512MB.
There is nothing wrong with the CDs, they have burned fine and have been verifed.
Also, what of this is aimed at me, as some of it seems to be directed to someone other than me or kanez, --Josh being someone mentioned.
+
http://download.linuxtag.org/knoppix/KNOPPIX-FAQ-EN.txt
[edit] Ah, guess you can't leech. You'll have to go to www.linuxiso.org, and get the english version of knoppix
noraid doesn't help it, neither does noprobe (or ide=noprobe).
So I still couldn't get in to recompile.