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

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Date:	Fri, 22 Apr 2011 23:33:21 +1000
From:	Chris Samuel <chris@...muel.org>
To:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>, x86@...nel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: 2.6.38.3 and 2.6.39-rc4 hangs after "Booting the kernel" on quad Pentium Pro system

/* Please CC me in any response, I'm not on LKML or the x86 list */

Hi all,  I'm afraid "perl scripts/get_maintainer.pl -f arch/x86/boot/compressed/misc.c"
has pointed to you as the people to report this to.. ;-)

I've got an ancient Olivetti Netstrada, a deskside server
system with quad Pentium Pro 200MHz processors, 256MB RAM,
dual power supplies and five 4GB SCSI drives.  I've been
trying to get a newer distro on for a little while and you
can read the backstory elsewhere [1].

Current problem is that I am unable to get either 2.6.38.3
or 2.6.39-rc4 (or the Debian Squeeze 686 and 486 2.6.32 based
kernels) to boot, the final message I see is:

Booting the kernel.

The 2.6.18 based kernel from Debian Etch works with no problems,
but the Lenny 2.6.26 based kernel panics when decompressing the
initramfs claiming it's out of memory.

So far I've tried with a combination of 2.6.38.3 and 2.6.39-rc4:

1) A config based upon Debian's 2.6.32 kernel
2) A minimal config starting from an "allnoconfig" base.
3) An "allnoconfig" with the processor set to Pentium Pro
   and with all the "panic on hang" type checks turned on
   and the "panic=30" boot option.
4) An "allnoconfig" with verbose debug and boot messages
   and the processor set to i386.

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 ?

All the best,
Chris

[1] - http://www.csamuel.org/2011/04/22/modern-kernels-fail-to-boot-on-old-quad-processor-pentium-pro-server

-- 
 Chris Samuel  :  http://www.csamuel.org/  :  Melbourne, VIC

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