MEDION P89626 with 3.1.10

[FileDescriptor]

Hi members,

I've installed ALARM to this box booting directly from SATA drive but can reproduce hang ups after utilizing about 87% of memory according to top, though having 512MB swap partition in use (which gets also allocated a few MB's).
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
root@alarm tools# uname -a
Linux alarm 3.1.10 #4 SMP Wed Mar 21 18:34:51 CET 2012 armv6l ARMv6-compatible processor rev 5 (v6l) Oxsemi NAS GNU/Linux
')

The system simply stops when trying to do a somewhat memory hogging perl CPAN.pm ugrade via below command with no messages in any usual /var/log/* files plus is completely unreachable both from ssh/network and serial console:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
[root@alarm ~]# perl -mCPAN -e 'install CPAN'
Fetching with HTTP::Tiny:
http://www.planet-elektronik.de/CPAN/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
Going to read '/root/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz'
............................................................................DONE
Fetching with HTTP::Tiny:
http://www.planet-elektronik.de/CPAN/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz
Going to read '/root/.cpan/sources/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz'
Database was generated on Thu, 05 Apr 2012 23:43:04 GMT
HTTP::Date not available
..............
New CPAN.pm version (v1.9800) available.
[Currently running version is v1.960001]
You might want to try
install CPAN
reload cpan
to both upgrade CPAN.pm and run the new version without leaving
the current session.
..............................................
')

I tried to set up watchdog but after starting it with watchdog -v it will reboot a few seconds later. I guess I need to have the proper watchdog module loaded before, probably I mixed them up. In powertop I can see there seems to be already some support of that functionality:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
Top causes for wakeups:
37.0% ( 2.0) [kernel core] watchdog_timer_action (watchdog_timer_action)
25.9% ( 1.4) [oxnassata] <interrupt>
18.5% ( 1.0) minidlna
3.7% ( 0.2) [eth0] <interrupt>
3.7% ( 0.2) ntpd
3.7% ( 0.2) init
3.7% ( 0.2) [kernel core] bdi_arm_supers_timer (sync_supers_timer_fn)
3.7% ( 0.2) [kernel core] cfq_completed_request (cfq_idle_slice_timer)
')

but lsmod doesn't show any modules of such kind:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '
[root@alarm tools]# lsmod
Module Size Used by
nfsd 101827 11
exportfs 4111 1 nfsd
nfs 328170 0
nfs_acl 2807 2 nfs,nfsd
auth_rpcgss 40999 1 nfs
lockd 82121 2 nfs,nfsd
sunrpc 226431 18 lockd,auth_rpcgss,nfs_acl,nfs,nfsd
ipv6 293395 38
')

Having the system running only a few daemons/programs like NFS and minidlna the system feels fine and doesn't hang.

Any idea's how to debug that issue?

Many thanks in advance

FileDescriptor

[WarheadsSE]

Moving this to V3 boards.

This is the exact problem we have with the 3.1+ kernel, and why it hasn't been released as an official kernel yet

[FileDescriptor]

Thanks for clarification and your effort, very much appreciated.

I googled a bit around regarding these somewhat generic SMP kernel problems with ARM and wonder, if any other kernel hackers from other main distributors like Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora (plus Google's effort to bring ANDROID related fixes back into main 3.x kernel line as many of today's smartphones have ARM-based SoC's in it) can lead to a successful integration, finally.

So do you expect being able to take advantage of their success of fixes in ARMv6, to which PLX-782x should be compatible?

FileDescriptor

[WarheadsSE]

The problem is ARM is not as simple as people seem to think it its. Each SoC implementation is different, and as this is the the first major deployment of the 782x SoC by PLX, few people have worked on it. PLX has released a 2.6.3x variant code base that "works" and with most manufacturers, that is all that is needed, thus all supplied.

[MikeyS]

Hi,
I am running a MEDION P89626 with 3.1.10 kernel also. But yet, I have not encountered these issues. Nevertheless I stumbled upon this thread http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.por ... nel/135920 on linux-arm-kernel about cache sync issues. From what I can see these patches did not go into the 3.1 kernel.

Maybe these patches are worth testing?

Regards,
MikeyS

[telzey]

Nice find! Thanks

[sluppy]

Hello Everyone,

with the help of a friend and the guide by Ulf Zimmermann ( the tutorial is in german but maybe it is of use to explain my predicament, http://www.mikrocontroller.net/attachment/132515/Installation_ArchLinuxArm.pdf ) I "installed" Arch on my P89626.

Obviously, as i am writing here, it didnt work as it was supposed to.
I did as stated in the tutorial, i downloaded the necessary install files, saved them in the root of the fat32 formatted usb, opend the backdoor of the nas, restarted the device, and installed arch.
sofar, so good.
the install seemed to be working just fine, but after the device rebooted after the install, everything was over.
the nas does not connect to the router anymore ( it does not obtain an ip address, not listed in the routers status)
so i am not able to access it or do anything with it.

also i am not able to reinstall arch. i thought if i plug the usb back in and reboot, it should again boot up the usb and i should get at least telnet access, as i had before. but nothing...

i dont know what to do, or how i could fix this.
I assume as i can access the nas i probably need to remove the hdd and connect it with the pc directly?


unfortunately i dont know much about nas and arch, i am fine with commandline operations and linux itself, but as soon as it gets more complicated ...

hope you guys can help me out
cheers,
sluppy

[Philoo]

just a hunch: is devtmpfs support enabled in the medion kernel config ?

One way to check it (except from downloading and reviewing the config file) would be to follow the process listed and download the 2012-05 oxnas rootfs. if it boots with your 3.1 kernel then the kernel is good, pacman -Syu, reboot if it does not then this would most likely (IMHO) be the devtempfs support issue.

on second look you might want to chek the impact of this http://www.archlinux.org/news/the-lib-directory-becomes-a-symlink/ that change led me to re-install my rootfs and Ulf wrote his guide before it happened. If the modules are not where expected then you'll get a system that boots but is basically useless. serial console console access should be possible though (if enabled on the medion)

[WarheadsSE]

Actually, if it boots with 2012.05 but not 2012.06 and later, devtmpfs is the problem.

[sluppy]

Hello Guys!

Thanks for the replies.
I searched vor devfmpfs and found this:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=3110&p=18026&hilit=devtmpfs#p18017
so i downloaded the archives, unzipped them to the usb, replaced the lib/modules and plugged it into the nas.

but it still does not show up on my routers listed devices so i assume it does not boot up properly :/

Im pretty sure i did everything as in the other post. ( its pretty much just unpack anyway, so ...)