Re: IBM x360 2.2.x boot failure, 2.4.9 works fine

From: Gordon J Lee (gordonl@world.std.com)
Date: Fri Mar 15 2002 - 20:50:35 EST


Thanks for the rapid replies,

> Eeek, these machines are now in the wild? Didn't realize this :)

Yes. They are still ramping up production, and evals are scarce.
I am pretty excited about it, because on paper, even without
the hyperthreading, they should run pretty fast for I/O intensive
workloads. My current eval project is to get some empirical
performance numbers on a particular application.

> I don't know if anyone ever tried a 2.2.x kernel on these boxes :)

I'm first! Lucky me! :-)

> Is there a reason you _really_ need a 2.2.x kernel for this machine?

Longterm no, shortterm yes,
We have some modifications to the 2.2.x kernel/drivers that would cost
us some time to migrate to 2.4.x. We expect to do this, but not within
the short eval period during which I have the box. My immediate goal
is to get it running enough to take performance measurements so we
can clearly quantify the cost/benefit of migrating to this box.

> You also might try a UP 2.2.x kernel on this box to see if the problem
> is in the parsing of the APIC tables (as I think it is.)

As a matter of fact, we did try a UP 2.2.x kernel, and it worked. But then

we only have one CPU, and where is the fun in that ? :-)
So I suppose this gives further support to the mishandled APIC table
theory.

I am interested and motivated to understand the details of APIC's further.
If I were to attempt to patch up a 2.2.x kernel to workaround this problem,

what documentation should I have on hand ? I have an Intel SMP 1.4
doc, although I haven't studied it in detail yet. Is this sufficient or
are
there other Must Have documents that I will need ?

    - GL



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