Re: [gentoo-user] gentoo-sources-2.6.35-r12 causes kernel panic

[Mick]

On Saturday 27 November 2010 17:53:21 Mark Knecht wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 9:17 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@×××××.com> wrote:
> > On Saturday 27 November 2010 15:17:43 Mark Knecht wrote:
> >> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 6:59 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@×××××.com> wrote:
> >> > I haven't had much luck with the 2.6.35 version of kernels - they have
> >> > cause panics on two different x86 boxen.
> >> >
> >> > Now that 2.6.35 has gone stable so I tried it again and I'm getting a
> >> > kernel panic complaining about VFS unable to mount root fs:
> >> > ==================================
> >> > VFS:  Cannot open root device "sda3" or unknown-block(0,0)
> >> > Please append a correct "root=" boot option; here are the available
> >> > partitions: Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs
> >> > on unknown-block(0,0) Pid: 1, comm: swapper Not tainted
> >> > 2.6.35-gentoo-r12 #2
> >> > Call Trace:
> >> >  [<c14b3530>] ? panic+0x5f/0xc6
> >> >  [<c1693c68>] ? mount_block_root+0x1c2/0x245
> >> >  [<c1002930>] ? do_signal+0x766/0x7f2
> >> >  [<c1693d31>] ? mount_root+0x46/0x5a
> >> >  [<c1693e8b>] ? prepare_namespace+0x146/0x182
> >> >  [<c1093203>] ? sys_access+0x1f/0x23
> >> >  [<c16933f1>] ? kernel_init+0x1a9/0x1b7
> >> >  [<c1693248>] ? kernel_init+0x0/0x1b7
> >> >  [<c10030b6>] ? kernel_thread_helper+0x6/0x10
> >> > panic occurred, switching back to text console
> >> > ==================================
> >>
> >> <SNIP>
> >>
> >> > Am I missing something obvious to make the 2.6.35 series work with my
> >> > boxen?
> >>
> >>    OK, there's so many possibilities for what causes this. Basic
> >> confusion ensues...
> >>
> >> 1) When booting, if you look carefully, is the initial kernel seeing
> >> _any_ disks? Sometimes they fly bye and are hard to catch. If it is
> >> then is it showing sda3?
> >
> > The moment the monitor comes on it's already crashed - the first line
> > under the penguins shows:
> >
> > Initializing USB Mass Storage driver...
> >
> > so I assume that any probing of drives has already happened.
> >
> >> 2) What sort of file system did you put on sda3? I assume this is
> >> built into the kernel if this is an upgrade?
> >
> > reiserfs built into the kernel and unchanged for the last umpteen kernel
> > series.
> >
> >> 3) Post the appropriate part of grub.conf to show how you are booting.
> >
> > title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.35-r12
> > root (hd0,5)
> > kernel /kernel-2.6.35-gentoo-r12 root=/dev/sda3
> >
> > The 2.6.34-r12 uses the same stanza except for *.35 being replaced with
> > *.34
> >
> >> 4) Post fstab
> >
> > /dev/sda6     /boot      ext2            noauto,noatime          1 1
> > /dev/sda3     /          reiserfs        noatime                 0 1
> > /dev/sda2     none       swap            sw                      0 0
> > [snip]
> >
> > I'll now build the kernel on the second x86 box and see what happens
> > there. --
> > Regards,
> > Mick
>
> Yeah, all makes sense what you've done and I can only offer one more
> thing for you to look at.
>
> I skipped from 2.6.33 to 2.6.36 so I cannot say anything specific
> about the *.35 series, but one thing I've suffered with on my 2.6.36
> build is that if I have a specific USB hub hooked up my machine won't
> complete a boot. I have to disconnect this USB hub prior to boot and
> then hook it back up after the boot completes.
>
> I've not had time to look for the cause so I only hook it up to use
> it. After boot there are no other problems I've seen.
>
> I was assuming that maybe there's some difference in the USB stuff
> that I hadn't discovered yet, and since you see a crash at a USB step
> possibly it's similar and I never saw it at *.35 because I never used
> that series?
>
> Good luck and I wish I could be of more help.

Thanks for trying to help me Mark, I'm surprised this problem is not more 
widespread.

My second x86 machine also fails with the same kernel panic.  :-(

Because this is a slower machine I had a moment to see the initial messages 
before the penguin showed up.

It said:

ERROR:  Unable to locate IOAPIC for GSI4

This is repeated a number of times and then the penguin pops up before the 
kernel crashes a dozen lines further down.  It seems that this is a regression 
error, which I hope has been taken care of in later kernels:

http://kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/linux-kernel/2010/7/8/4591800
-- 
Regards,
Mick