TC doesnt boot a desktop, no loops, no extentions

[pchotfix]

Hi!
I try to install TC with FWLM on a Thin Client.
Actualy i have 2 problems, where i realy need help from more experienced TC users.

1.) DMA. I use a Seagate SG1 (2,5GB) CF Card which dont support DMA.
-So i tried to disable the DMA on the drive with hdparm, it fails.
-I tried to disable the Kernel DMA-Support with  "libata.dma=0 ide-core.nodma=0.0 ", no change, DMA-Reset Errors still appear sometimes.

2.) TC sometimes boot smooth to a Prompt. But no Extentions where loaded, no loop devices are mounted, so no startx command is aviable to start a desktop.

Backgound Things:
I parted the CF-HDD to start on sector 65..-> suxess
installed GAG (realy great bootmanager which resist only in the MBR)..-> suxess
formated sda1 with ext3..-> suxess
installed grub(1) to sda1..-> suxess
i copy the TC files as follows:
/boot/core.gz
/boot/vmlinuz
/boot/grub/... (as from my host)
/cde/... (as of the cdrom)
and finaly i create a
/tce/ dir and copy the content of the /cde/optional in it because i hat no idear why no extentions loaded... ;-)

now gag start grub, which offer the menu-lst, and if i choose an entry it boots the kernel, but the boot end at a prompt.

here is the output of dmesg (shortend):

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Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
RAMDISK: 0f6ca000 - 0fbf0000
ACPI Error: A valid RSDP was not found (20110413/tbxfroot-219)
0MB HIGHMEM available.
252MB LOWMEM available.
  mapped low ram: 0 - 0fc00000
  low ram: 0 - 0fc00000
Zone PFN ranges:
  DMA      0x00000010 -> 0x00001000
  Normal   0x00001000 -> 0x0000fc00
  HighMem  empty
Movable zone start PFN for each node
early_node_map[2] active PFN ranges
    0: 0x00000010 -> 0x000000a0
    0: 0x00000100 -> 0x0000fc00
On node 0 totalpages: 64400
free_area_init_node: node 0, pgdat c054b040, node_mem_map cf4d2200
  DMA zone: 32 pages used for memmap
  DMA zone: 0 pages reserved
  DMA zone: 3952 pages, LIFO batch:0
  Normal zone: 472 pages used for memmap
  Normal zone: 59944 pages, LIFO batch:15
Kernel command line: tce=sda1/tce home=sda1 opt=sda1 max_loop=255 libata.dma=0 ide-core.nodma=0.0 nodhcp vga=788 norestore noswap
Memory: 243544k/258048k available (3222k kernel code, 14056k reserved, 1193k data, 448k init, 0k highmem)
Detected 300.727 MHz processor.
ACPI: Interpreter disabled.
vgaarb: loaded
SCSI subsystem initialized
libata version 3.00 loaded.
vgaarb: device added: PCI:0000:00:12.4,decodes=io+mem,owns=io+mem,locks=none
reserve RAM buffer: 000000000fc00000 - 000000000fffffff
pata_cs5530 0000:00:12.2: setting latency timer to 64
scsi0 : pata_cs5530
scsi1 : pata_cs5530
ata1: PATA max UDMA/33 cmd 0x1f0 ctl 0x3f6 bmdma 0xf000 irq 14
ata2: PATA max UDMA/33 cmd 0x170 ctl 0x376 bmdma 0xf008 irq 15
ata1.00: CFA: ST625211CF, 3.04, max UDMA/33
ata1.00: 4883760 sectors, multi 16: LBA
ata1.00: configured for PIO4
scsi 0:0:0:0: Direct-Access     ATA      ST625211CF       3.04 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
sd 0:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] 4883760 512-byte logical blocks: (2.50 GB/2.32 GiB)
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
rtc_cmos 00:03: setting system clock to 2012-01-07 13:14:09 UTC (1325942049)
 sda: sda1
sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk
Freeing initrd memory: 5272k freed
Freeing unused kernel memory: 448k freed
loop: module loaded
zram: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned.
zram: num_devices not specified. Using default: 1
zram: Creating 1 devices ...
zram: disk size not provided. You can use disksize_kb module param to specify size.
Using default: (25% of RAM).
zcache: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned.
zcache: module license 'unspecified' taints kernel.
Disabling lock debugging due to kernel taint
Adding 62312k swap on /dev/zram0.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:62312k SS
squashfs: version 4.0 (2009/01/31) Phillip Lougher
EXT4-fs (sda1): mounting ext3 file system using the ext4 subsystem
EXT4-fs (sda1): recovery complete
EXT4-fs (sda1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)

Here my menu-lst related entries:

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title TC4.1 by Moon
kernel /boot/vmlinuz tce=sda1 home=sda1 opt=sda1 max_loop=255 libata.dma=0 ide-core.nodma=0.0 nodhcp vga=788 norestore noswap
initrd /boot/core.gz cde showapps desktop=flwm_topside

The output of fdisk -l

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Disk /dev/sda: 2500 MB, 2500485120 bytes
77 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1022 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4774 * 512 = 2444288 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks  Id System
/dev/sda1   *          65         108      105028  83 Linux
The output of mount:

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rootfs on / type rootfs (rw,relatime,size=224352k,nr_inodes=30443)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,relatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,relatime)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,relatime,mode=600,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,relatime)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)
/dev/sda1 on /mnt/sda1 type ext3 (rw,relatime,barrier=1,nodelalloc,data=ordered)
/dev/sda1 on /home type ext3 (rw,relatime,barrier=1,nodelalloc,data=ordered)
/dev/sda1 on /opt type ext3 (rw,relatime,barrier=1,nodelalloc,data=ordered)
Any Tip or trick would be a great help!
THX
Rene

[Rich]

Hi pchotfix

title      TC4.1 by Moon
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz tce=sda1 home=sda1 opt=sda1 max_loop=255 libata.dma=0 ide-core.nodma=0.0 nodhcp vga=788 norestore noswap
initrd      /boot/core.gz cde showapps desktop=flwm_topside

Shouldn't it look like this?:

Code: [Select]

title TC4.1 by Moon
kernel /boot/vmlinuz tce=sda1 home=sda1 opt=sda1 libata.dma=0 nodhcp vga=788 norestore noswap cde showapps desktop=flwm_topside
initrd /boot/core.gz
I removed a couple of unnecessary boot codes. I'm not sure that  cde  belongs in there.

[pchotfix]

showapps and desktop are options in the original syslinux.conf. But i already tries to apply it different - no change.

other tips?

[gerald_clark]

You should NOT be using the boot options 'cde' nor 'maxloops'/
Until you know what you are doing, you should also not be using 'home=sda1', 'opt=sda1', nor 'norestore'.
Use:
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz tce=sda1 libata.dma=0 ide-core.nodma=0.0 nodhcp vga=788 noswap

[Rich]

Hi gerald_clark
Does ide-core.nodma even do anything since the generic IDE driver was removed?

[gerald_clark]

I really don't know.
I was just trimming mistakes from the original kernel line.
I have a machine that boots from compact flash, and do not need any dma options.

A 'waitusb=5' option may be need if the tce directory is not found.

[Rich]

Hi gerald_clark

A 'waitusb=5' option may be need if the tce directory is not found.

It's certainly worth including until he gets it booting properly. He can then try removing it to see
if it's really needed.

[pchotfix]

Hi Gerald and all the other helping minds,

i did it exactly as you proposed, but the result is the same. Booting to a prompt, no loops, no extentions mounted.

How to track this problem? Does TC any logs? Which script does the mounts normaly? Does anybody know which problem is the cause of this symptoms?

Use:
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz tce=sda1 libata.dma=0 ide-core.nodma=0.0 nodhcp vga=788 noswap

THX again,
Rene

[Rich]

Hi pchotfix
Do you have a  /tce/optional/  directory in the root of your device? That directory should contain
whichever extensions you require. You should also have an  onboot.lst  file in the  /tce/  directory
listing those extensions.

[pchotfix]

Hi Rich,

Yay! Suxxess! Great! Thank you very much!

THX
Rene

Do you have a  /tce/optional/  directory in the root of your device? That directory should contain
whichever extensions you require. You should also have an  onboot.lst  file in the  /tce/  directory
listing those extensions.