Summary: | Kernel panic while booting Gentoo Install x86 Universal CD 2005.1 | ||
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Product: | Gentoo Release Media | Reporter: | Nuno Silva <njsg> |
Component: | Everything | Assignee: | Gentoo Release Team <releng> |
Status: | VERIFIED INVALID | ||
Severity: | normal | ||
Priority: | High | ||
Version: | unspecified | ||
Hardware: | All | ||
OS: | Linux | ||
Whiteboard: | |||
Package list: | Runtime testing required: | --- | |
Attachments: | The contents of the screen when the "Kernel panic" message has been shown. |
Description
Nuno Silva
2006-01-11 05:31:50 UTC
Created attachment 76827 [details]
The contents of the screen when the "Kernel panic" message has been shown.
Here is the full error message.
Minimum system requirements are 64 Megabytes of RAM... (In reply to comment #2) > Minimum system requirements are 64 Megabytes of RAM... > The computer is now running Gentoo only with 32 Megabytes, and as far as I know, the minimum memory needed to run the Linux kernel is only 4 Megabytes. Does the CD-ROM kernel needs more memory than the ``normal (In reply to comment #2) > Minimum system requirements are 64 Megabytes of RAM... > The computer is now running Gentoo only with 32 Megabytes, and as far as I know, the minimum memory needed to run the Linux kernel is only 4 Megabytes. Does the CD-ROM kernel needs more memory than the ``normal´´ kernel? Yes. The kernel on the CD has most modules setup, and many modules get loaded, waiting for a device to appear to attach to. This was a change somewhere in the 2.6 kernel branch. Previously, modules would not load if the device was not present that it represented. With later kernels, the module loads and waits for the device to show up, triggering a hotplug event. Also, even if you managed to get past the kernel panic, the squashfs filesystem used takes up a significant amount of space. Considering that the kernel plus the initramfs take up more than 16MB of space *before* loading any drivers or the squashfs, you can easily see how quickly memory is consumed. Now I undestand what happened. But isn't it possible to create a live-cd kernel which is able to boot in systems with less than 64MBs of RAM? If Gentoo can be installed and used in these systems, the install CD should boot on them too. No. The only way to facilitate that would be via a custom CD. If you knew the hardware that you were targetting, and didn't need to include drivers for other hardware, it could be done. There's no way that we could make one that still has the same functionality. I have been experimenting with a uclibc-based CD, which would reduce the memory requirements due to a smaller footprint, but it is nowhere near completion. Even then, I'm still not sure that it would work on a machine with 32MB of RAM. (In reply to comment #6) > The only way to facilitate that would be via a custom CD. If you knew the > hardware that you were targetting, and didn't need to include drivers for other > hardware, it could be done. There's no way that we could make one that still > has the same functionality. Isn't it possible to include a kernel image from DSL in the Gentoo CD-ROM? (I'm able to boot DSL on the ``problematic'' machine.) No. That would reduce our functionality greatly, as it does not include nearly as many drivers as we do. The simple answer is we have no desire to attempt to support such lowmem machines, due to the added hassle in trying to get them to work. We have a published minimum system requirements that plainly states that we do not support anything less than 64MB of RAM. |