2006-02-13 06:03:30

by Knut Petersen

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: netboot / nfsroot problems

Hi Hans Peter,

You asked Carlos Carvalho and me if we care to try

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/hpa/linux-2.6-klibc.git

Netbooting does work for me now without any problems, please see

http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0601.3/2128.html and
http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0601.3/2322.html

Some time after the last msg netboot stoped to work again, reenabling pio
for the 8139 solved that problem again.

At that time I thought I found an 8139too bug, but the report of Carlos
shows
that I might have been wrong. Two possibilities remain:

- Both the 8139 and the Intel NIC drivers are broken in a way that
allows them
to work reliably in normal operation, but that prevents them to receive
ip packets during ip autoconfig.

- Some code that both these cards use during ip autoconfig is broken.

Netbooting a VIA rhine system worked without any problems, it worked
with _exactly_ the same setups that failed for 8139too.

Do you still believe that our problems could be solved by the code in
your git
tree? I would have to install git here first, but I will do it if necessary.

I asked Carlos to try to boot with the netconsole code enabled as this
changes
the nic init and thus _could_ help, unfortunately I received no answer
up to now.

cu,
Knut