Bug 148290

Summary: toshiba satellite cdt320: unable to boot rescue-system
Product: [openSUSE] SUSE Linux 10.1 Reporter: Per Jessen <per>
Component: InstallationAssignee: Steffen Winterfeldt <snwint>
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX QA Contact: Klaus Kämpf <kkaempf>
Severity: Normal    
Priority: P5 - None CC: aj
Version: Beta 3   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: i586   
OS: Other   
Whiteboard:
Found By: Other Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---

Description Per Jessen 2006-02-05 17:25:52 UTC
I'm trying to load the rescue system from CD1 onto my Toshiba CDT320.  After having manually loaded ide-generic, the start up gets to "Starting udevd " at which point it appears to stop.  On virtual console 4, I can see some sort of memory display being refresh every 4-5 seconds.  The machine is not hung, I can switch between virtual consoles.
Comment 1 Per Jessen 2006-02-06 07:25:25 UTC
I need to add - when I tried the rescue system from 10.0GM, it suggested I activate some swap-space (the machine has 64M RAM), but this never happened with 10.1B3.
Comment 2 Michael Gross 2006-02-06 11:05:51 UTC
So this might be a memory problem?
Please notice that modern systems like 10.1 require a certain amount of memory to run. You can activate swapspace using swapon(8). Closing this unless there is a real problem in which case you can reopen it and attach more information about it.
Comment 3 Per Jessen 2006-02-06 12:11:00 UTC
The problem is that the install system on 10.1 beta3 does not suggest activating some swap-space whereas 10.0 GM did.  Something seems to have been regressed.  

Where would I enter the swapon command - I don't remember any of the virtual consoles allowing me to enter a command. 
Comment 4 Michael Gross 2006-02-06 12:29:54 UTC
Console 2 (Alt+F2) should work (give you a prompt). Sorry but normally no swap is required for a simple rescue system (it might be used to repair your partition setup, ...). If you need an installation system for such an old machine, use older distributions.
Comment 5 Per Jessen 2006-02-06 17:31:28 UTC
FYI, I'm not reporting the problem in order for you to fix it or tell me how to work around it. 
I'm testing the beta-release and I'm providing feedback on what isn't working. 
The problem is that the automatic detection of insufficient memory and option to activate swap was present in previous rescue systems, now it isn't.  This is a regression of functionality.  
Comment 6 Forgotten User ZhJd0F0L3x 2006-02-06 21:01:31 UTC
The problem might very well be that the installer/rescue system (AFAIK they are pretty similar at this stage) do not even get to a point where they could tell you to swapon or give you a prompt to do it yourself. I am no rescue system expert, so this is just a guess. HTH
Comment 7 Andreas Jaeger 2006-02-07 08:21:56 UTC
Let's look closer at the low memory situation...
Comment 8 Andreas Jaeger 2006-02-07 08:22:15 UTC
Steffen, is there a problem?
Comment 9 Per Jessen 2006-02-07 09:37:03 UTC
FYI, I tried starting the rescue system using "insmod=ide-generic addswap=1", which didn't change much - it stopped at "Starting udevd", just like in my original description. 
Comment 10 Steffen Winterfeldt 2006-02-07 10:16:42 UTC
The 10.1 rescue system is considerably smaller than the 10.0 one. I
don't think you need swap for it.

Are you talking about linuxrc starting udevd or udevd as started from
the usual rc-scripts in the rescue system?
Comment 11 Per Jessen 2006-02-07 11:55:03 UTC
I did notice the rescue system being a lot smaller, yes.  I think I was mistaken in suspecting swap-space. 
The udevd that is hanging is the one started by the rc-scripts in the rescue system.  
Comment 12 Steffen Winterfeldt 2006-02-07 12:27:43 UTC
It runs out of memory at this point. Whith active swap it still hangs, but
I've no idea why.
Comment 13 Per Jessen 2006-02-07 14:19:14 UTC
I've just checked and the swap-space IS activated (128M), but it doesn't seem to be used (very little disk-activity).
This time I was switching around between the consoles, and for some reason the memory-displays on #4 didn't turn up.  I went to #1 and hit Ctrl-C - which made the system continue and complete the startup.
Comment 14 Steffen Winterfeldt 2006-03-15 13:39:33 UTC
I could get it to work with 128MB, 64MB seems to be just too low.