LTSP thin client hangs 3-4 minutes at boot-up clocksource tsc unstable

[Nick_Hill]

Actual behaviour:
Boot Toshiba satellite pro 4600 (BX chipset, P3) as a thin client. Very slow boot to log-in screen. Takes around 4 minutes to get log-in screen.

edit /var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/i386/pxelinux.cfg/default

change splash to nosplash, remove quiet from kernel boot line then observe booting laptop again.

Laptop shows
[ 17.438728] e100: eth0: e100_watchdog: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex
waits 3-4 minutes then shows:
[ 17.782386] Clocksource tsc unstable (delta = -3291491518 ns)

Interestingly, although 3 or more minutes have passed, the kernel appears to have only clocked 343.6ms. This could point to a problem with kernel interaction with hardware. However, there is no such delay when the machine boots on the stock Ubuntu hardy kernel from hard drive, so this may not belong directly with Ubuntu kernel bugs.

edit /var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/i386/pxelinux.cfg/default again, adding acpi=off . The laptop now boots in reasonable time.

cd /var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/i386/pxelinux.cfg/
cp default my-mac-address
then revert default to how it was. This provides a solution.

Using current up-to-date default packages for ltsp.
ltsp-server-standalone:
  Installed: 5.0.40~bzr20080212-0ubuntu7
  Candidate: 5.0.40~bzr20080212-0ubuntu7
  Version table:
 *** 5.0.40~bzr20080212-0ubuntu7 0
        500 http://ubuntu.virginmedia.com hardy-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     5.0.40~bzr20080212-0ubuntu6 0
        500 http://ubuntu.virginmedia.com hardy/main Packages