Jaunty 2.6.28-4 fails to boot on old Celeron 400MHz

[Jonathan Hudson]

Binary package hint: linux-image

An old celeron 400Mhz machine that has been used to test builds from warty onwards fails to boot 2.6.28-4-{generic,server}. 2.6.28-3 boots fine.

Once a 2.6.28-4 kernel is selected, it hangs (in a serial console) as:

root (hd0,4)
 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-4-server root=/dev/md0 ro verbose console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400n8
   [Linux-bzImage, setup=0x3000, size=0x347030]
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-4-server
   [Linux-initrd @ 0x775000, 0x77a554 bytes]

------ never gets passed here -------

The 2.6.28-3 and earlier kernels boot normally ......

 Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0xfd
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.28-3-generic root=/dev/md0 ro console=tty0 console=ttyS0,38400n8 verbose
   [Linux-bzImage, setup=0x3000, size=0x244130]
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.28-3-generic
   [Linux-initrd @ 0x6d4000, 0x81b999 bytes]

[ 0.000000] BIOS EBDA/lowmem at: 00000000/000a0000
[ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
[ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
[ 0.000000] Linux version 2.6.28-3-generic (buildd@palmer) (gcc version 4.3.)
[ 0.000000] KERNEL supported cpus:
[ 0.000000] Intel GenuineIntel

etc

[Jonathan Hudson (jh+lpd)]

2.6.28-5 shows the same (no boot) behaviour (not that I expected it to).

[Jonathan Hudson (jh+lpd)]

For the record, on karmic, 2.6.30-5-generic doesn't boot, which is probably not a surprise, however, 2.6.30-2-386 also fails to boot, which is rather sad. 2.6.30-1-386 did boot.

2.6.30-2-386 =>
Boot from (hd0,0) ext2 9bcee918-fb9c-4c16-b076-2d38ad2455f9
Starting up ...
# Stops here #

-jh

[Jonathan Hudson (jh+lpd)]

I upgraded the 1999 BIOS to the latest (2002) BIOS. The machine boots the generic kernel. Will test with karmic and invalidate the bug if that boots.

[Jonathan Hudson (jh+lpd)]

An old bios problem, not a kernel issue.