Re: 2.6 kernel on Alpha ?

Hi mathew:

[email protected] wrote:
  > I am able to compile and boot a UP kernel, but I continuously
> get these messages on screen during boot and later in the
> system logs
> 
> [kernel] sd 0:0:0:0: M_REJECT to send for : 1-2-3-1.
> 
> seems to come from the SCSI SYM53C8XX_2 driver which handles the
> Symbios 53c810 controller chip. I am using these settings in
> the kernel config
> CONFIG_SCSI_SYM53C8XX_2=y
> CONFIG_SCSI_SYM53C8XX_DMA_ADDRESSING_MODE=0
> CONFIG_SCSI_SYM53C8XX_DEFAULT_TAGS=16
> CONFIG_SCSI_SYM53C8XX_MAX_TAGS=16
> # CONFIG_SCSI_SYM53C8XX_IOMAPPED is not set
> (I tried using IOMAPPED and different DMA modes and number of TAGs
> also, but the message still shows up)
> 
> in 2.4.30, the driver version is sym-2.1.17a and it works fine
> (without any of these REJECT messages), while 2.6.12.5, the
> driver version is 2.2.x I believe.
> 
> does anyone on the list know of an issue which could cause this ?
> is the REJECT message a cause for concern ? (system seem to work
> fine as before)

Ferdy and me are also suffering  a similar problem using 53c810 
controller on AS2100. On our alpha, if you try to boot the installcd 
using a 2.6 kernel you will see a lovely kernel dump.

2.6 kernel 53c810 driver seems to be completely broken for us, and 
indeed, 2.4 driver works just fine.

After some investigations, i found (on red-hat alpha mailing list) they 
patched 2.6 53c810 in some way for the next release of AlphaCore 2.0. 
After unpacked the patches from red-hat kernel, I saw a lovely 
linux-2.6.12-ncr810-alpha.patch[1] which could be what we are looking 
for. If you can give it a try and report the feedback would be c00l.

I'm installing a testing machine to work on this problem but still don't 
have time to check if it works.

> 
> also, I have udev, though I have not disabled/removed devfs since
> I was not sure if 2.6 is ready for this HW yet

I think the problem comes from the kernel driver, udev/devfs have 
nothing to do with this (imho).

> 
> BTW, SMP kernel does not boot. the system goes into a kernel panic
> along with machine check and invalid FP emulation instruction etc.
> 
> Can 2.6 SMP work on gentoo alpha ? (or only on the newer models ?)

2.6 SMP kernels are still broken on alpha. I think there are some people 
mainly from red-hat trying to fix this at the moment. May be kloeri or 
agriffis can tell us a bit more about this issue.

> 
> I also see that gcc-3.4.4-r1 is marked stable. can that be used for
> kernel, glibc, etc. or its only for specific packages ? (I see that
> its slotted)

A stable gcc should be ready to compile everything!! you can use 
3.4.4-r1 to compile all your system.

> 
> thanks for any comments, pointers or experiences that you could share
> 
> thanks, Mathew
> 

Always welcome, np

--------------------------------
[1] http://dev.gentoo.org/~yoswink/tmp/linux-2.6.12-ncr810-alpha.patch

YosWinK @ gentoo.org
Gentoo Alpha Team

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