Can't run uncompressed (vmlinux) kernels

[Loïc Minier]

Binary package hint: qemu-kvm

Hi

I can't run vmlinux (uncompressed) kernels with qemu-system-arm; they just hang on boot. vmlinuz ones (bzImage).

I can however kexec vmlinux kernels just fine.

This was tested under versatile.

I'm running it as follows:
qemu-system-arm -m 256 -drive file=lucid.img,media=disk -M versatilepb -cpu cortex-a8 -kernel vmlinux -append 'root=/dev/sda console=ttyAMA0,115200 S rootwait' -nographic

Bye,

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Mar 8 12:09:08 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
KvmCmdLine: Error: command ['ps', '-C', 'kvm', '-F'] failed with exit code 1: UID PID PPID C SZ RSS PSR STIME TTY TIME CMD
MachineType: LENOVO 2777CTO
Package: qemu-kvm-extras 0.12.3-0ubuntu10
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-2.6.32-15-generic root=/dev/mapper/hostname--vg0-ubuntu--root ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=fr_FR.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/zsh
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-15.22-generic
SourcePackage: qemu-kvm
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-15-generic x86_64
dmi.bios.date: 03/12/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 6EET27WW (1.08 )
dmi.board.name: 2777CTO
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr6EET27WW(1.08):bd03/12/2009:svnLENOVO:pn2777CTO:pvrThinkPadX301:rvnLENOVO:rn2777CTO:rvrNotAvailable:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 2777CTO
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad X301
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

reassigned to qemu-linaro, which now owns qemu-system-arm. Loïc, is this reproducible with qemu-linaro?

[Loïc Minier (lool)]

It is reproducible for me as follows:

tip of qemu-linaro as of today (c67ccff50fd53723302c47a233f3daec2807cf0d) built with:
./configure --target-list=arm-softmmu --enable-debug --static
make -j2

This starts:
arm-softmmu/qemu-system-arm -M vexpress-a9 -kernel vmlinuz-2.6.37-1003-linaro-vexpress -append 'console=ttyAMA0,115200' -serial stdio

This doesn't and eats all CPU:
arm-softmmu/qemu-system-arm -M vexpress-a9 -kernel vmlinux -append 'console=ttyAMA0,115200' -serial stdio

vmlinuz-2.6.37-1003-linaro-vexpress is from the linaro-vexpress binary .deb from some time ago, but it boots fine so shouldn't matter.

vmlinux is generated with a script I had written and tested a while ago:
http://people.canonical.com/~lool/vmlinuz-to-vmlinux
this script takes a vmlinuz as input, and outputs a vmlinux on stdout; it is possible that the structure of the ARM uncompressor evolved since I wrote this, and this simple implementation might be incorrect nowadays.