setup of OpenSSI 1.9.6 with Debian Sarge with a very old hardware

Gentleman,

I tried to install OpenSSI 1.9.6 in Debian Sarge running in the 
following hardware:

jackal@master:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor    : 0
vendor_id    : GenuineIntel
cpu family    : 5
model        : 4
model name    : Pentium MMX
stepping    : 3
cpu MHz        : 233.825
fdiv_bug    : no
hlt_bug        : no
f00f_bug    : yes
coma_bug    : no
fpu        : yes
fpu_exception    : yes
cpuid level    : 1
wp        : yes
flags        : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 mmx
bogomips    : 459.77

jackal@master:~$ lspci
0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5597 
[SiS5582] (rev 02)
0000:00:01.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS85C503/5513 
(LPC Bridge) (rev 01)
0000:00:01.1 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] 
(rev d0)
0000:00:0b.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. 
RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
0000:00:14.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 
5597/5598/6326 VGA (rev 65)

The hardware is quite old, so I didn't expect to have issues regarding 
drivers.

Setup in this machine was quite straightforward, without any noise 
besides ipvsadm complain (which was expected, I think).

The only thing that I changed is that I used a Debian Sarge CDROM to 
start the install, then I added the URI below to sources.list:

deb http://archive.debian.org/debian/ Debian-3.1 main contrib

The problem was when I tried to boot with the OpenSSI kernel: after 
initial messages from the kernel, the monitor goes black and the machine 
just restarted alone.

After that I tried adding "noapic" option in the menu.lst file, but the 
result was the same. I tried to boot also by using the rescue option 
with the OpenSSI kernel (grub) but again all I got was a black screen 
and a automatic reboot.

I tried latter to compile the kernel 2.6.11-ssi-686-smp in this box, 
changing only the processor type and removing the SMP support.

During the compilation, the machine just hung when compiling the 
following line:

kernel/ptrace.o

The machine just freezed, I could not boot by using the keyboard (the 
numlock and caps locks just didn't respond after some clicks), I had to 
reboot the machine by using the reset button.

I intend to compile the kernel 2.6.8-4-386 (Debian Sarge Vanilla) just 
to check if it's not a kernel option or a bug, but I would appreciate 
any help about this issue.

Thanks in advance,
Alceu


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Start uncovering the many advantages of virtual appliances
and start using them to simplify application deployment and
accelerate your shift to cloud computing.
http://p.sf.net/sfu/novell-sfdev2dev