[gentoo-dev] Gentoo 1.0 install CD (stage2/stage3) kernel panic(?) from PCMCIA

[John Matthews]

I have successfully bootstrapped a Gentoo 1.0_rc6 system in the past,
and the PCMCIA stuff for that install CD worked great.

I am rebuilding system using Gentoo 1.0 install CD (going straight to
stage 3, having backed up /etc to a safe place, and then nuked all old
Gentoo install). The install looks about the same except that it detects
a SCSI subsystem that the 1.0_rc6 CD didn't find. Then if I insmod (or
modprobe) pcmcia_core I get what appears to be a kernel panic.

I lose control of the system and page after page of numbers (looks like
addresses, whatnot) go streaming by. I cannot stop it to see what they
are and I cannot capture the data.

Laptop is a Compaq Armada 1700. (I don't think this has anything to do
with the cards. Same result when no cards inserted.)

I have gotten system mostly working now. I didn't do any network stuff
and just installed the stage 3 tarball and other housekeeping. Then
rebooted using 1.0_rc6 CD. Enabled networking with this working kernel
and chroot-ed into the new 1.0 stage 3 I had installed. Was able to
emerge kernel-sources and will build from there.

If the Gentoo devs are following this, I thought they might want to know
that something in PCMCIA support changed between 1.0_rc6 and 1.0 that
makes the install painful, but no impossible. Certainly not for the
people that don't know to work around it somehow.

If I should file a bugzilla report, let me know. I suspect there may be
a kernel option around this or a module parameter, but am not
knowledgeable enough to know what.

Regards and thanks,
matt

-- 
Matt Matthews     \ ph: 919.660.2811        \ Use GNU/Linux  _o) w00t
Duke Univ., Postdoc\ jvmatthe@×××××××××.edu  \____________   /\\
Dept. of Mathematics\ http://www.math.duke.edu/~jvmatthe/ \ _\_V