Re: Unable to install RHEL3 U9 on a AM2-based Mainboard

["Paul Krizak" <paul krizak amd com>]

Weird.

The "swapper" process was on the stack (as pid #1) when the system 
paniced.  So perhaps the kernel is trying to initialize swap space using 
a poorly-supported SATA controller, or the wrong driver is getting 
loaded for your memory controller (remember, AM2 is DDR2, previous stuff 
was DDR1)

Is this a fresh install of RHEL3?  If you're able to do a fresh install 
but then the kernel panics on the first "real" boot (or panics when 
booting off the install CD) then we might be looking at a bug here.

But if this was just a hardware upgrade, with no change to the OS 
already on the hard disk, then it may just be that the initrd doesn't 
contain the appropriate driver for your new memory controller or SATA 
controller.  If this is the case, you'll need to boot from the rescue CD 
and do some initrd voodoo to get your system back up and running.  Or, 
just do a fresh install.

Finally, keep in mind that RHEL is designed for enterprise customers 
that can depend on hardware on the compatibility list to work.  It 
sounds like you're trying to install RHEL on commodity desktop hardware, 
which is most likely not on the compatibility list.  RHEL3 is *old*, and 
thus does not work well with new hardware.  Big names like HP and Sun 
were able to get their new AM2-based workstations on the RHEL3 
compatibility list because they helped Red Hat by providing updated 
drivers for everything.  "ASRock" probably did not do that.

If this is for a home system, I'd recommend something like Fedora Core 
7, which will have *much* better hardware support than RHEL3, but isn't 
necessarily an "enterprise" OS.  If you *need* an enterprise OS, try 
RHEL5 and see if it works for you.

Paul Krizak                         5900 E. Ben White Blvd. MS 625
Advanced Micro Devices              Austin, TX  78741
Linux/Unix Systems Engineering      Phone: (512) 602-8775
Silicon Design Division             Cell:  (512) 791-0686


Andre Schubert wrote:
> Hi,
>
> i have tried all these kernel parameters, nothing helped.
> I also have tried to disable all the onboard-stuff and nothing helped.
> The hardware is a ASRock ALiveSATA2-GLAN with VIA K8T890 Chipset
> and a AMD Sempron 3200+ (64Bit).
> I also have tried a ASUS-M2V with a AMD Athlon 3800+ wich also doesnt work.
> I also have tried the 64-Bit version with no luck.
>
> This is the RHEL3-i386-U9 kernel-panic, wich is always the same.
>
> Oops: 0000
> CPU:    0
> EIP:    0060:[<c010c539>]    Not tainted
> EFLAGS: 00010002
>
> EIP is at (2.4.21-50.ELBOOT/i686)
> eax: 00000000   ebx: fffffed0   ecx: ffffffed   edx: c02beed0
> esi: 00000293   edi: 00000000   ebp: ffffffed   esp: f7ff3f58
> ds: 0068   es: 0068   ss: 0068
> Process swapper (pid: 1, stackpage=f7ff3000)
> Stack: ffffffed 00000000 c0312d40 c01c43ac ffffffed c36c1000 00000000 00000000
>        c0312d40 00000000 00000000 c01c4d96 c0312d40 00000001 00000001 00000001
>        00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000001 00000000
> Call trace:   [<c01c43ac>]  (0xf7ff3f64)
> [<c01c4d96>]  (0xf7ff3f84)
> [<c0107028>]  (0xf7ff3fd8)
> [<c0107036>]  (0xf7ff3fdc)
> [<c0107028>]  (0xf7ff3fe0)
> [<c0108fe1>]  (0xf7ff3ff0)
>
> Code: ff 50 10 58 eb d3 90 57 56 53 8b 74 24 10 89 f2 c1 e2 04 8d
>
>
> Thanks,
> Andre Schubert
>
>
> On Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:30:58 -0500
> "Paul Krizak" <paul krizak amd com> wrote:
>
> > We had issues getting RHEL3/4 to install on newer AMD-based hardware for 
> > various reasons.  Try one of these on the kernel cmd line:
> >
> > * noapic nolapic acpi=off
> > * pci=conf1
> > * nmi_watchdog=0
> >
> > If you still can't get the kernel to boot, post the output here and we 
> > can take a look.
> >
> > What specific kind of hardware are you trying to install on?
> >
> > Paul Krizak                         5900 E. Ben White Blvd. MS 625
> > Advanced Micro Devices              Austin, TX  78741
> > Linux/Unix Systems Engineering      Phone: (512) 602-8775
> > Silicon Design Division             Cell:  (512) 791-0686
> >
> >
> > Andre Schubert wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > i recently bought a mainboard with an AM2-socket.
> > > Everytime i try to install RHEL3 U9 i got a kernel-panic during booting.
> > > The kernel-panic is always the same and always reproducible.
> > >
> > > For testing purposes a had time to test another mainboard from a different vendor,
> > > with different ram/harddrives/cdrom etc., but the kernel panic is still the same.
> > >
> > > Are there any know issues on installing RHEL3 U9 on a AM2-socket mainboard ?
> > >
> > > I have absolutely no idea what to do next.
> > > Hope someone could help me a little bit ?
> > >
> > > Best regards,
> > > Andre Schubert
> > >
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> >
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