More on Compaq Proliant install boot mystery

From: David Nedrow (listbox_at_nedron.net)
Date: 08/24/04

  • Next message: Mike Burger: "Re: Cannot start Fedora 2." 
    To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list@redhat.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 20:44:16 -0400

    OK, I'm starting from scratch now.

    I have multiple Compaq DL360, 1850R, and 2500 servers with varying
    amounts of memory (minimum is one 2500 with 128M) and CPU
    configurations, from single 200MHz pentiums to dual 1GHz pentiums.

    The one thing these boxes all have in common is that they have some
    variant of the Compaq SMART array controller. All hard drives on the
    systems are managed via the array controllers.

    Note that the behavior I'm describing occurs identically under FC1,
    FC2, and FC3T1.

    Simply booting the Fedora installation makes it to the point of telling
    me I don't have enough memory for the installation. Fine, I've run into
    that before.

    Booting the Fedora installation with "linux mem=128M" (test box in this
    case is a Proliant 2500 with SMART-2SL array controller and 128megs of
    RAM) yields a kernel panic, advising that I provide a proper "root="
    parameter to the kernel. I suspect strongly that in this case, the
    cpqarray driver is never being loaded.

    Seeing some other similar complaints and solutions, I tried
    exactmapping of memory. The kernel statement I provided are:

    mem=exactmap mem=640K@0 mem=127M@1M

    mem=exactmap mem=640K@0 mem=15M@1M mem=122M@16M

    mem=exactmap mem=640K@0 mem=15M@1M mem=48M@16M mem=64M@64M

    The last one uses memory locations I got via SmartStart (Compaq's
    configuration tool for Proliant servers).

    Anytime I provide the mem=exactmap parameters, the boot hangs
    immediately after "Uncompressing Linux... OK, booting the kernel".

    Has ANYONE installed FC* on a Compaq Proliant with all drives managed
    by a SMART array controller? I really think something is funky in the
    initrd image. Maybe a bad module map, or funky EISA support, something
    like that.

    I did manage to get one machine installed, but only by creating a
    custom kernel for the installer and then running mkinitrd from a
    chroot'd rescue to get the system to boot the default installed kernel.

    -David 

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