(Applies to "install-alpha-minimal" version 20181120 112659Z and other versions based on the same kernel.) Issue: The Qlogic ISP1020 is the OEM-approved/installed SCSI adapter for the DEC Alpha PWS-433au. This adapter is handled by the "qla1280" driver with "qlogic/1040.bin" firmware. The current Gentoo installCD for Alpha architecture has this driver built-in to the kernel, but the necessary firmware is missing as indicated by a kernel log message to that effect (as shown by "dmesg"). Impact: No SCSI hard drive is detected, so installation cannot proceed. Additional info: "lspci -v" shows the adapter is present and recognized. "dmesg" and "lsmod" confirm the presence of the "qla1280" driver as built-in rather than modular. "dmesg" confirms the absence of "qlogic/1040.bin" when an external firmware load is attempted at driver initialization. Suggested fixes/workarounds: (1) Include the firmware as part of the kernel build (CONFIG_EXTRA_FIRMWARE=). (2) Add the firmware to the installCD initial ramdisk and/or squashfs image as appropriate. Sincere thanks for continuing to support the Alpha architecture.
Under "Suggested fixes/workarounds", option (2) is a non-starter. The issue is that a built-in driver will attempt to load firmware before the root fs has been mounted. If the firmware is present in the appropriate directory of the initial ramdisk, the kernel panics with a VFS error when the firmware load is attempted. Bottom line: if the driver is built-in, the needed firmware needs to be built-in as well.
Having the firmware in initramfs should work even for built-in drivers But building in the firwmare would be an "easier" fix, only requiring a kernel config & spec tweak, no genkernel/catalyst code changes
(In reply to Ben Kohler from comment #2) > But building in the firwmare would be an "easier" fix, only requiring a > kernel config & spec tweak, no genkernel/catalyst code changes I'll be happy to perform the testing/QA of the fix if a new i-a-m image could be produced. I don't have the required infrastructure locally to do that: the disk in my Alpha died, which is why I need a working install image. *Because* I'm starting from scratch, I'm currently willing to test the entire Gentoo installation process on a Miata from end to end. If the release team would be appreciative of that offer, the sooner they let me know, the better. Thanks in advance!
Please give https://gentoo.osuosl.org/releases/alpha/autobuilds/20181229T120643Z/ a try.
ACK. Will be a day or two before I can test it, but I'll download the image and burn it to CD this evening. Thanks!
Apologies for the long delay in reporting back. It appears the decided action was to make the "qla1280" driver modular. Upon booting the new i-a-m image, the module was loaded, but the firmware failed to load. At the "livecd ~ # " prompt, "rmmod qla1280" followed by "modprobe qla1280" was sufficient to put things right. I'll press on and see if there's anything else worth mentioning. Thanks.
Ran into what has evidently been a long-outstanding bug in "fdisk" on "alpha" as far as creating a valid BSD disklabel and partitions for use with the SRM console. Several threads I encountered in my research suggest the only practical way forward is to dig up a much older version of "fdisk", say, 2.12r as mentioned here: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-1025044-start-0.html I may try to dig out some of the disk partitioning/labeling utilities from my old Debian CDs and cobble something together, but I'm done for today. Matt -- I'll wait for a little feedback before opening a bug report on "fdisk", just in case this is pilot error on my part. Except for the issue of having to reload the driver module to get the firmware to load, I think this bug is mostly resolved. Thanks.
The bug has been closed via the following commit(s): https://gitweb.gentoo.org/proj/releng.git/commit/?id=93f08e6773c2c669b9a7fab2c41bba0f27ec65e5 commit 93f08e6773c2c669b9a7fab2c41bba0f27ec65e5 Author: Matt Turner <mattst88@gentoo.org> AuthorDate: 2020-02-19 18:38:35 +0000 Commit: Matt Turner <mattst88@gentoo.org> CommitDate: 2020-02-21 02:09:04 +0000 specs/alpha: Include firmware for QLogic ISP1020 in initramfs Closes: https://bugs.gentoo.org/671820 Signed-off-by: Matt Turner <mattst88@gentoo.org> releases/weekly/specs/alpha/installcd-stage2-minimal.spec | 1 + 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
Okay, starting with install-alpha-minimal-20200215T160133Z.iso (uploading to the mirrors now) the QLogic firmware should be included in the initramfs. So no module unload/reload required. :)
