Difference between revisions of "Bering-uClibc 4.x - User Guide - Basic Configuration - Booting for the First Time"

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(Added link to "Overview of the Startup Sequence" Appendix)
m (Successful First Boot: - Corrected 4.0.0 Rev number (9 -> 12))
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==Successful First Boot==
 
==Successful First Boot==
 
If everything works properly you should see lots of diagnostic output followed by a login prompt similar to the following:
 
If everything works properly you should see lots of diagnostic output followed by a login prompt similar to the following:
  LEAF Bering-uClibc 4.0.0 Rev 9 uClibc 0.9.30.3  firewall tty1
+
  LEAF Bering-uClibc 4.0.0 Rev 12 uClibc 0.9.30.3  firewall tty1
 
  firewall login:
 
  firewall login:
  
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   q) quit
 
   q) quit
 
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Selection:  
+
  Selection:
 
+
  
 
==Troubleshooting==
 
==Troubleshooting==

Revision as of 09:56, 22 May 2011

Basic Configuration - Booting for the First Time
Bering-uClibc 4.x - User Guide Next


Install Media and Boot

Insert the prepared boot media into the system which is to run Bering-uClibc 4.x and power it on.


Successful First Boot

If everything works properly you should see lots of diagnostic output followed by a login prompt similar to the following:

LEAF Bering-uClibc 4.0.0 Rev 12 uClibc 0.9.30.3  firewall tty1
firewall login:

Login as user "root" (no password required at this point). You will be prompted to set a password for the root account (twice). You will then be presented with the LEAF configuration menu:

                       LEAF configuration menu


       1) Network configuration

       2) System configuration

       3) Packages configuration

 				s) Save configuration
				m) Backup modules
				f) Find & load modules for hardware

				c) Show configuration changes since last save
				d) Show configuration changes from defaults
 
				h) Help
 q) quit
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
	Selection:

Troubleshooting

In the event of problems it is worth reviewing the Appendix which describes the Bering-uClibc startup logic to assess how far the boot progressed before failing.

Some specific issues, with solutions / workarounds, are listed below.

DMA Issues

Some drives, especially some Compact Flash drive / adaptor combinations, do not properly support DMA. The symptoms of problems are boot messages like the following, accompanied by delays while the drive access times out and it reverts to non-DMA operation:

[   36.768088] ata1: lost interrupt (Status 0x58)                                                                                        
[   36.769016] ata1: drained 4096 bytes to clear DRQ.                                                                                    
[   36.772872] ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen                                                          
[   36.773075] ata1.00: failed command: READ DMA                                                                                         
[   36.773261] ata1.00: cmd c8/00:08:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/e0 tag 0 dma 4096 in                                                        
[   36.773273]          res 40/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/00 Emask 0x4 (timeout)                                                      
[   36.773752] ata1.00: status: { DRDY }                                                                                                 
[   36.773970] ata1: soft resetting link                                                                                                 
[   36.931430] ata1.00: configured for MWDMA2                                                                                            
[   36.931597] ata1.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0                                                                             
[   36.931772] ata1: EH complete

The solution is to disable any attempt to use DMA for the relevant device by setting options for the libata driver. The following is a small extract from linux-2.6.35.8/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt (part of the kernel source distribution):

libata.dma=     [LIBATA] DMA control
                libata.dma=0      Disable all PATA and SATA DMA
                libata.dma=1      PATA and SATA Disk DMA only
                libata.dma=2      ATAPI (CDROM) DMA only
                libata.dma=4      Compact Flash DMA only
                Combinations also work, so libata.dma=3 enables DMA
                for disks and CDROMs, but not CFs.

So, assuming the problem affects only Compact Flash devices, these can have DMA disabled by using kernel argument libata.dma=3. This should be specified by editing file syslinux.cfg:

  1. Mount the boot drive: mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
  2. Edit syslinux.cfg: edit /mnt/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
  3. Add libata.dma=3 to the APPEND line so that the complete line reads: APPEND reboot=bios libata.dma=3
  4. Unmount the boot drive: umount /mnt
  5. Reboot



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