Re: YDL is a no go......


Subject: Re: YDL is a no go......
From: Stefan Jeglinski (jeglin@4pi.com)
Date: Thu Oct 26 2000 - 08:17:56 MDT


>Yes...sorry. I've tried both several times.
>Same conclussion, that's why I think it might be the Cresendo G3 PCI processor
>upgrade that I forgot to mention.

Ah, grasshopper, never leave out the important stuff :-)

I use YDL on several PowerTowers with PowerLogix upgrades. I've seen
the freeze after "booting..." many a time, and it occurs (or doesn't
occur) equally with either the BootX extension or app. In my
experience, there are two common possibilities:

1. Kernel version. I roll my own kernels, and there are a fairly wide
variety available these days. One that I know -does- works with the
PowerTowers/PowerLogix setup is Paul's ppc.samba.org
linux-pmac-stable 2.2.17. Unfortunately, that kernel is now up to
2.2.18pre17, and something in it is broken, because when I build it
"as usual," I do get the freeze at "booting..." (Paul, I know you're
not listening to this list, so this comes at you telepathically). You
might try a vanilla kernel.org 2.2.17 (since 2.2.14 or so they build
OOTB pretty well on machines like yours and mine - I personally have
settled into rsyncing with the paulus pmac-stable kernel because it's
convenient and fast).

2. L2 cache setting. Are you trying to run with the BootX checkbox
for the cache selected? If so, try unchecking that for starters. If
it then works, the problem is an L2 cache initialization issue.
PowerLogix has a utility to determine the correct 32-bit number (a
register? an address?) for the L2. With the BootX distribution, there
is also a utility called GrabCache. The problem is that I've seen
each one come up with a different result on the same machine. The
second problem is that this 32-bit number must be stored as a
resource in the BootX preferences, and sometimes when using GrabCache
or the PowerLogix utility, this number is not stored correctly.
Anyway, if this is not set correctly, I see the "booting..." freeze.

A third possibility - although I think it applied primarily to
Crescendo G3L2 upgrades (603-class machines), there was a thread
several months ago on this YDL list for tricks to get those Crescendo
cards to boot in Linux. Search the archive for "G3L2" and
"Crescendo." If you can't find it, maybe I can dig it up.

So in summary - try the PowerLogix utility (I can send it),
GrabCache, or a Crescendo utility if they have such a thing. See what
they yield, then look at the BootX prefs resource to see if it is
stored correctly, -then- try turning on the BootX L2 switch. If this
doesn't work, try another kernel and repeat.

Stefan Jeglinski



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