Subject: switched to strongARM and 160 Mb and Debian 2.2 doesn't boot anymore. Why ?

From: Angelo <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2000 09:32:49 +0100 (BST)

Hi,

I have debian 2.2 running for a few weeks on my RISC PC 700, with an ARM 7
and 64 Mb (+2 Mb VRAM). This worked rather well (did some recompiling and
stuff).

Yesterday I recieved my memoryupgrade and StrongARM and I installed it. The
memory went up from 64 (2x32Mb) to 160 (128 + 32Mb) and I put the StrongARM
in. But when I tried to reboot, debian hang at the 'Starting INIT 2.78' line.
Could someone please tell me why ? Is there something which I can do to make
it work again ? It should work on StrongARM, doesn't it ? Or is it a memory
problem ?

I am running the kernel which is included in the distribution (the 2.2.13,
which worked on the ARM 7).

Thanks in advance,
Angelo

-- 
Angelo Melis @ home
random quote, generated by my computer:
If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, why practice.

unsubscribe: body of `unsubscribe linux-arm-kernel' to [email-masked]

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From: Chris Blazie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 09:37:06 -0400 (EDT)

> Could someone please tell me why ? Is there something which I can do to make

	As far as I know, memory sizes greater than 32MB are not supported
in the Strongarm kernel right now.  You can verify this by modifying
arch/arm/arch.c and arch/arm/setup.c to declare only 32MB and see if it
works.  Our hardware works when "detuned" like that; at some point I'm
planning to take a look at the problem if it's still there.

Regards,
Chris

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From: Russell King - ARM Linux Admin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 14:40:56 +0100 (BST)

> planning to take a look at the problem if it's still there.

Huh?
   _____
  |_____| ------------------------------------------------- ---+---+-
  |   |        Russell King       [email-masked]      --- ---
  | | | |            http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/            /  /  |
  | +-+-+                                                     --- -+-
  /   |               THE developer of ARM Linux              |+| /|\
 /  | | |                                                     ---  |
    +-+-+ -------------------------------------------------  /\\\  |

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From: Chris Blazie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 09:59:54 -0400 (EDT)

> > planning to take a look at the problem if it's still there.

	A couple of months ago when I first brought up our hardware,
declared memory sizes greater than 32MB generated an oops on bootup.
Based on the function backtraces, it definitely appeared that something in
the kernel was choking on the larger memory size.  Based on my messages
about it, Nicolas tenatively agreed that something may be wrong.  I
suppose it could be our hardware, but the memory checks out fine with
every memory test routine I ran in the bootloader.  With plenty of other
things to work on, I left the problem alone.  Maybe it's time I checked it
again.

Regards,
Chris

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From: "J.D. Bakker" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 16:19:56 +0200

At 15:59 +0200 28-08-2000, Chris Blazie wrote:
>> > in the Strongarm kernel right now.
>
>> Huh?
>

That should be > 32MB *per bank* on the SA-11[01]0, right ?

We have 64MB expansion boards for LART which work just fine when we use
only 32MB (for a total of 64MB); attempts to use more memory result in the
problems you describe. According to Nico it's an assumption in the kernel
that a bank can never be >32MB. Fixing this is on our Todo-list, albeit not
very high.

JDB.

--
Jan-Derk Bakker, [email-masked]

The lazy man's proverb:
    'There's no business like slow business !'

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From: Nicolas Pitre <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 11:17:43 -0400 (EDT)

> > planning to take a look at the problem if it's still there.

This restriction is only SA11x0 related, and the limit is actually 32 MB
for each of the four memory banks.  This is due to my original and
incorrect design which I plan to fix once I'll be sure to do it the
right way.  Since the generic discontigous memory support moved a bit in
latest kernels, I wanted to wait a bit more.

In short, this doesn't concern other architectures than SA1100 based.

Nicolas

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From: Russell King - ARM Linux Admin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 17:06:20 +0100 (BST)

> In short, this doesn't concern other architectures than SA1100 based.

Err, this has nothing to do with the thread - it was concerning >32MB on
a RiscPC, not SA11x0.
   _____

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From: "Scott Bambrough" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 00:54:38 -0400

> > > planning to take a look at the problem if it's still there.

Huh?  We have had NetWinder's running with 256 MB of RAM.  We regularly ship
machines with 128 MB.   It's StrongARM based.

Scott

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From: Russell King - ARM Linux Admin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 09:48:40 +0100 (BST)

> machines with 128 MB.   It's StrongARM based.

The original mail was about a RiscPC:

| I have debian 2.2 running for a few weeks on my RISC PC 700, with an ARM 7
| and 64 Mb (+2 Mb VRAM). This worked rather well (did some recompiling and
| stuff).

Can people please remember that, with us supporting some 40 different
types of platform, with about 20 of them being "StrongARM" based, that
when someone talks about a processor type (ie, ARM7, StrongARM, ARM920T)
that they are not necessarily talking about your particular platform.
It may help also if the platform is mentioned in the subject line?

Ideas for improvement of quality welcome.
   _____

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From: pecondon <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 11:42:22 -0700

I'm following this list in the hope that I can learn about the various ARM platforms that
are available and supported. Eventually, I hope to make a (mildly) rational selection of
platform for a device I want to build. Is there a catalog of platforms giving a short
description of each and an official name for each? Is there a database of features that
are, or are not, included in each platform? (i.e. the sort check list that marketers like
to use to flog their products.)

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From: Russell King - ARM Linux Admin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 2000 19:56:38 +0100 (BST)

> to use to flog their products.)

If you'd like to suggest some initial categories of the types of things
you'd like to see, I can probably track down a large percentage of the
maintainers to get them to provide the relevent information.  They
should actually all see this mail as well...
   _____
  |_____| ------------------------------------------------- ---+---+-
  |   |        Russell King       [email-masked]      --- ---
  | | | |            http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/            /  /  |
  | +-+-+                                                     --- -+-
  /   |               THE developer of ARM Linux              |+| /|\
 /  | | |                                                     ---  |
    +-+-+ -------------------------------------------------  /\\\  |