On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 10:10:55PM +1100, Paul Mackerras wrote: > Mel Gorman writes: > > > Yaboot in my case and I've heard it affected a DVD installation. I don't > > know for sure if it affects netboot but as I think it's something the > > kernel is doing, it probably doesn't matter how it gets loaded? > > What changed in that commit was the contents of a couple of structures > that the firmware looks at to see what the kernel wants from > firmware. Specifically the change was to say that the kernel (or > really the zImage wrapper) would like the firmware to be based at the > 32MB point (which is what AIX uses) rather than 12MB (which was the > default on older machines). > > So, as I understand it, it's not anything the kernel is actively > doing, it's how the firmware is reacting to what the kernel says it > wants. And since we are requesting the same value as AIX (as far as I > know) I'm really surprised it caused problems. >
Same here, it sounds like an innocent change. While it is possible that AIX could not work on this machine, it seems a bit unlikely. > We can revert that commit, but I still need to solve the problem that > the distros are facing, namely that their installer kernel + initramfs > images are now bigger than 12MB and can't be loaded if the firmware is > based at 12MB. That's why I really want to understand the problem in > more detail. > > > It's been pointed out that it can be "fixed" by upgrading the firmware but > > surely we can avoid breaking the machine in the first place? > > Have you upgraded the firmware on the machine you saw this problem on? No. Luckily for us, it was scheduled to be upgraded but it got delayed :). I've asked the guy to go somewhere else for a while so I should be able to keep the machine in the state it's currently in. > If not, would you be willing to run some tests for me? > Of course. -- Mel Gorman Part-time Phd Student Linux Technology Center University of Limerick IBM Dublin Software Lab _______________________________________________ Linuxppc-dev mailing list Linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org https://ozlabs.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxppc-dev
