Subject: More Sandpoint woes

From: Alex Shnitman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 21:36:39 +0300

Hi,

I've got the Sandpoint/PPMC7400 to boot the kernel, mount the root
filesystem via NFS, and try to execute init. By the way, does anyone
have any idea why if I disable initrd support in the kernel config, it
doesn't succeed booting via BOOTP -- it times out, but the sniffer
doesn't even show that it sends any packets to the cable; while if I
enable initrd support, it just fails to mount the ramdisk, but then
proceeds to do a network boot all right? I tried it countless times,
and there's absolutely nothing else causing this -- it's that kernel
option. Some timing issue perhaps? This really puzzles me, even though
it's not a show-stopper.

In any case, when it tries to execute init it oopses. I've attached
the full bootlog to this mail, but in any case, here's the ksymoops of
the first oops:

>>EIP; 00000300 Before first symbol   <=====
Trace; ffffffea <END_OF_CODE+3bf364df/????>
Trace; c004b8c4 <load_elf_interp+28c/2d4>
Trace; c004c148 <load_elf_binary+6e8/950>
Trace; c003c9e4 <search_binary_handler+5c/160>
Trace; c003cc54 <do_execve+16c/1fc>
Trace; c0007218 <sys_execve+70/f0>
Trace; c0004e34 <ret_from_syscall_1+0/a0>
Trace; c0003f14 <init+18/1a8>
Trace; c0009670 <kernel_thread+2c/38>

Here's the ksymoops of the second:

>>EIP; 00000300 Before first symbol   <=====
Trace; c0007328 <print_backtrace+90/c8>
Trace; c0005268 <_exception+34/68>
Trace; c00054b8 <ProgramCheckException+4c/5c>
Trace; c0005090 <ret_from_except+0/c>
Trace; ffffffea <END_OF_CODE+3bf299e7/????>
Trace; c004b8c4 <load_elf_interp+28c/2d4>
Trace; c004c148 <load_elf_binary+6e8/950>
Trace; c003c9e4 <search_binary_handler+5c/160>
Trace; c003cc54 <do_execve+16c/1fc>
Trace; c0007218 <sys_execve+70/f0>
Trace; c0004e34 <ret_from_syscall_1+0/a0>
Trace; c0003f14 <init+18/1a8>
Trace; c0009670 <kernel_thread+2c/38>

And then the rest continue in the same vein -- an oops inside an oops
inside an oops.

Any idea what causes this?

I wanted to do some debugging on this, so I tried to enable kgdb in
the kernel config, but then it didn't link, complainig about
unresolved symbols getDebugChar, putDebugChar and
kgdb_uninterruptible.  I saw them defined in 8xx_boot/uart.c; does
this mean that on my board it's not supported? How hard would it be to
add it? (I *do* want to do it myself, perhaps with a little
bootstrapping from you as to *how*.)

--
Alex Shnitman                            | http://www.debian.org
[email-masked], [email-masked]   +-----------------------
http://alexsh.hectic.net    UIN 188956    PGP key on web page
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"I think there is a world market for about five computers."
	-- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943