Subject: Linux kernel on an ARM3 A3000

From: James Craig <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 1997 15:32:38 +0100 (BST)

I finally managed to get the kernel cross-compiling correctly on my 6x86
machine, by shoving in a few printk()'s where the dma functions would
normally go. However, now I've got it compiling OK, when I try running the
kernel, it abrupts halts, saying:

*CUT*
started kswapd v 1.4.2.2
Keyboard driver v1.06. (id=1 English)
*CUT*

It doesn't appear to be doing anything, and the keyboard interrupt also
appears to be dead - i.e. hitting caps/num/scroll lock doesn't do
anything.
There's no error messages either. My first guess was that my Watford IDE
interface was causing trouble, but blacklisting it didn't help any.
Anybody know what's up?
-- James Craig <[email-masked]>

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From: James Craig <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 13:16:48 +0100 (BST)

Well, thanks to some help from Dave Gilbert, I finally got ARM linux
running on my A3000. Now I've got the fun of getting a distribution of
some sort installed from a 720K floppy. I've already managed to get sash,
the stand-alone shell compiled and running, so I guess I could probably
manage using that. Any suggestions on a good way of installing everything
else, given that I've got no ethernet, and the A3000s serial ports aren't
supported by the kernel?

---

From: Russell King - ARM Linux Admin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1997 10:11:45 +0100 (BST)

> interface was causing trouble, but blacklisting it didn't help any.

I wouldn't have thought that the Watford IDE interface is the cause of this
since the kernel's getting that far.

The next thing that happens after the keyboard driver is the printer/serial
drivers are initialised.  Since you're using an A3000 (and they're in
progress of being ported), if you configure them at the moment, you'll
get the ones for the A5000, which will cause the machine to hang, requiring
a reset.

If you configure the kernel without printer/serial ports, then it should
boot.  (Please note however, that the RedHat installer is unable to run in
4MB).
   _____
  |_____| ------------------------------------------------- ---+---+-
  |   |        Russell King        [email-masked]        --- ---
  | | | |    http://www.arm.uk.linux.org/~rmk/home.html      /  /  |
  | +-+-+                                                     --- -+-
  /   |               THE developer of ARM Linux              |+| /|\
 /  | | |                                                     ---  |
    +-+-+ -------------------------------------------------  /\\\  |

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From: James Craig <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 19:46:33 +0100 (BST)

What's the difference between the root disks for the various architectures
supposed to be exactly? I just tried creating a RiscPC boot disk from the
image on the Clan CD, and tried it out on the A3000. It seemed to work
perfectly - the Red Hat installer came up just fine, asked if I had a
colour monitor etc. If I had the relevant .RPM's in a position where I
could install them, I'm pretty sure it would have let me - I certainly
didn't see any errors up to the point where it asked what sort of ethernet
board I had. This also appears a little strange, given that the Red Hat
installer isn't supposed to work in 4Mb, but I was running from a 720K
ramdisk on a 4M machine....

Is there any chance of a libclite.so being released, so I can try and
build a basic rescue disk, like the slackware linux root disks?

---

From: Dave Gilbert <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 09:44:57 +0100

James Craig wrote:
> perfectly 

I think the only difference is the collection of modules for things like
ethernet cards and SCSI cards which are probably compiled differently
for the two architectures; if your not loading the modules your probably
safe.

> ramdisk on a 4M machine....

Sheesh don't you understand anything? If you don't tell the program
its not supposed to work it will; but once you come out and say
something like 'its not supposed to work' it will stop working :-)

Dave
-- 
---------------------------------------------------- Man can not live  -
 David Alan Gilbert - gro.gilbert @ treblig.org ---- by bread alone. He 
---------------------------------------------------- needs chocolate.  -