Sparc hangs on "Booting Linux" on Gutsy

[Jeff Balderson]

Binary package hint: linux-source-2.6.22

I have a Sun Netra X1 that I wanted to test Gutsy on. When booting, it gets as far as "Booting Linux" and fails to continue to boot regardless of how long I wait -- I left it sitting like this overnight last night. Since this seems to affect both the netboot image as well as the regular kernel, It appears that this might be a kernel or kernel build issue, which is why I attached it to the 2.6.22 kernel. Please adjust if you believe otherwise.

I notice this problem under two circumstances:

1) When I attempt to netboot from:
http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/gutsy/main/installer-sparc/20070308ubuntu12/images/sparc64/netboot/2.6/boot.img

I receive:

ok boot net
Boot device: /pci@1f,0/ethernet@c File and args:
Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet
Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet
Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet
Timeout waiting for ARP/RARP packet
94b800
Remapping the kernel... done.
OF stdout device is: /pci@1f,0/isa@7/serial@0,3f8
Booting Linux...

And it hangs indefinitely.

2) Since I couldn't get the Gutsy netboot image to work, I installed from the Feisty netboot image from:
http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/feisty/main/installer-sparc/20061102ubuntu26/images/sparc64/netboot/2.6/
Feisty installed and runs fine. Then I upgraded to Gutsy

After the upgrade, upon booting into the 2.6.22 (linux-image-2.6.22-11-sparc64 package, version: 2.6.22-11.33) kernel, I receive:

ok boot
Boot device: disk0:3 File and args:
SILO Version 1.4.13
boot:
Allocated 8 Megs of memory at 0x40000000 for kernel
Uncompressing image...
Loaded kernel version 2.6.22
Loading initial ramdisk (6616050 bytes at 0x60000000 phys, 0x40C00000 virt)...
-
Remapping the kernel... done.
OF stdout device is: /pci@1f,0/isa@7/serial@0,3f8
Booting Linux...

And it hangs indefinitely. Selecting "Linux-rescue" from the Silo prompt gives identical output.

If I manually select "LinuxOLD" (the 2.6.20 Feisty kernel from prior to the upgrade) at the Silo prompt, and it boots fine:

ok boot
Boot device: disk0:3 File and args:
SILO Version 1.4.13
boot:
Linux LinuxOLD Linux-rescue
LinuxOLD-rescue
boot: LinuxOLD
Allocated 8 Megs of memory at 0x40000000 for kernel
Uncompressing image...
Loaded kernel version 2.6.20
Loading initial ramdisk (6595677 bytes at 0x60000000 phys, 0x40C00000 virt)...
/
Remapping the kernel... done.
Booting Linux...
Loading, please wait...
 * Setting preliminary keymap...
   ...done.
[it continutes normally, so I snipped for brevity]

[Jeff Balderson (jbalders)]

This appears to have been resolved with kernel linux-image-2.6.22-13-sparc64 (2.6.22-13.40) and boot image 20070308ubuntu17

[Greg Toombs (greg-toombs)]

I've tried sparc64 netboots using the current dapper, edgy and feisty builds, and always get the behaviour described in (1). Where could I download the netboot image that you said has resolved the issue?

Thanks...