Subject: curiosity killed the cat

From: "M.B.J.Koek" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 09:26:49 +0100 (MET)

Hi,

Yesterday evening something strange happened while I was tinkering with Linux
that you might want to know about.

I'm installing Linux from floppies. I only have net access at the Uni and have
no CDROM, so even though the FAQ says that it can't be done, I'm trying all the
same. Now, using Paul Vigay's instructions and the FAQ for hints on how to do
it, I get pretty far. I transferred a number of RPMs successfully to
/RedHat/RPMS on /dev/hdb3 (I use a 2nd HD to put Linux on). I also succeeded in
un-tarring base.tar to create /RedHat/base.

But now I get to instimage.tar. It's too big for one floppy, so I gzipped it
and split it over 2 disks, using 'split' in HP-UX to create 2 files, 'xaa'
and 'xab'. I tested the procedure I had in mind by typing 'cat xa* > test'.
This gave me a file 'test' identical to 'instimage.tar.gz' so I was all right
(I thought).

However, when trying this at home (I copied the files from the floppies to my
normal ADFS harddisk and typed 'cat /adfs/linux/xa* > instimage.tar.gz' in
Linux), 'cat' died horribly, displaying some junk and then the following
post-morten somewhere randomly on the screen (mid-character even):

Internal error: Oops: 2 CPU: 0
pc : [<c00d8230>]
lr : [<c00bdee0>]
sp : c0d39e1c  ip : 00000000  fp : c0d39e40
r10: 00000000  r9 : 00000000  r8 : 00000000
r7 : 00000000  r6 : 00000000  r5 : 00000000  r4 : 00000000
r3 : 00000000  r2 : 0005c0e0  r1 : d7fff000  r0 : d8000900
Flags: nzCv  IRQs on  FIQs on  Mode SVC_32
Process cat (pid: 38, stackpage=c0d39000)
Stack:
Backtrace:
Function entered at [<c00d7fdc>] from [<c00bdee0>]
Function entered at [<c00bdd48>] from [<c00ab2d8>]
Function entered at [<c00ab28c>] from [<c00aca54>]
Function entered at [<c00abf34>] from [<c00acf30>]
Function entered at [<c00acd04>] from [<c00bac00>]
Function entered at [<c00bab7c>] from [<c00bae04>]
Function entered at [<c00badc8>] from [<c00c2b54>]
Function entered at [<c00c29dc>] from [<c00aec28>]
Function entered at [<c00aeb0c>] from [<c002d980>]
Function entered at [<c002d7ac>] from [<c00d69c4>]
Code: e2522014 ba000003 e93113f8 e92013f8 e2522020

I couldn't type anymore, ALT+Fx didn't work. Only CTRL+ALT+DEL did. I wrote the
pm down on a piece of paper, from which I've just copied it. Trying to reboot
with "Extra arguments: root=/dev/hdb3" results in a message "unable to open
initial console".

Because I had no time to boot from the installation floppies (again *sigh*) I
have not been able to try and reproduce the problem. Still, I'm curious about
what is happening, so I decided to report the post-mortem on the mailing list.

Hope anyone can tell me what exactly is going wrong.

'bye,

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

---

From: Phil Norman <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 09:29:21 +0000

In message <[email-masked]>
          "M.B.J.Koek" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> But now I get to instimage.tar. It's too big for one floppy, so I gzipped
> it and split it over 2 disks, using 'split' in HP-UX to create 2 files,
> 'xaa' and 'xab'. I tested the procedure I had in mind by typing 'cat xa* >
> test'. This gave me a file 'test' identical to 'instimage.tar.gz' so I was
> all right (I thought).
> 
> However, when trying this at home (I copied the files from the floppies to
> my normal ADFS harddisk and typed 'cat /adfs/linux/xa* > instimage.tar.gz'
> in Linux), 'cat' died horribly, displaying some junk and then the following

This is because cat, or the shell, or something doesn't work properly from
the boot discs, so instead of redirecting whatever you try to cat to a file,
it will splat it all over your console.  You'll need a program (join?) to put
the files back together for you.  A very simple C program would do it, but
unfortunately I don't have a linux-arm system anymore, so someone else will
have to provide it.

Phil

---

From: Russell King - ARM Linux Admin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 20:29:00 +0000 (GMT)

> that you might want to know about.

Indeed.  I'm always interested in bugs.

>...

Unfortunately, this is next to useless since you didn't say which version of the
kernel you're using.  However, through some devious means (using grep), I think
(though I'm not 100% sure) that you're using the 2.0.31-1997.11.15 kernel.

This kernel is rather old, as are the root and supplemental disks.  I would
suggest trying again with the latest 2.0.35 kernel.
   _____
  |_____| ------------------------------------------------- ---+---+-
  |   |        Russell King       [email-masked]      --- ---
  | | | |  http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/~rmk/armlinux.html    /  /  |
  | +-+-+                                                     --- -+-
  /   |               THE developer of ARM Linux              |+| /|\
 /  | | |                                                     ---  |
    +-+-+ -------------------------------------------------  /\\\  |
unsubscribe: body of `unsubscribe linux-arm' to [email-masked]