SMP mptable: bad signature

Forum: USB booting
Topic: SMP mptable: bad signature
started by: glms

Posted by glms on Mar. 31 2006,20:52

Hi,

I've dowloaded the latest (2.3) DSL release, which works perfectly on an IBM T42. On a second laptop however (Acer Travelmate 240) the kernel panics almost immediately, hanging.

With the help of some other distributions, I've seen that there is a failre message like "SMP mptable: bad signature". It seems that this is due to a Phoenix BIOS bug and that, in presence of this bug, 2.4 kernels hang (without any need, as they could proceed without problems), while 2.6 kernels are performing better.

I've therefore tried to start DSL (but also Knoppix etc) with failsafe, noapic, acpi=off, nodma etc. etc... There is no way to start these distributions if they have 2.4 kernels (Knoppix with 2.6 is starting with the only nodma option).

As far as I know, in order to avoid this behaviour could be enough to replace the panic with a call to printk...

Has anyone had (and solved) a similar problem?

Posted by roberts on April 01 2006,00:15

Did you try with nosmp option?

Posted by glms on April 01 2006,09:38

Yes, no effect. Maybe the only way is to recompile the kernel after having patched the wrong call to panic, but I don't have the used sources...

Posted by cbagger01 on April 01 2006,20:57

It seems like your options are limited.

(1) See if you can get a BIOS update.
(2) Try and recompile the kernel
(3) Wait for the linux 2.6 next-generation DSLike project to be released for testing
(4) Try a Linux 2.6 based distro like newer KNOPPIX.

Posted by glms on April 02 2006,04:54

1. I've already downloaded the latest Acer BIOS for my TM 240, but it doesn't improve the laptop behviour.
2. I'm thinking about it, but I'm not a linux expert. Are there clear and working guidelines for that (I mean, in relation to DSL): what to download and from where / how to recompile once patched / how to "install" it to DSL?
3. Good news! Do you know when it will be released for testing?
4. All the 2.6 distros I have work...

Thanks for your help!

Posted by cbagger01 on April 03 2006,16:50

2. Others have recompiled the DSL kernel. Some users, like tronik, even compiled DSL with a different kernel version. You could try to recompile with a 2.6 kernel but it might affect some of the autodetection stuff because 2.6 kernel module files end with *.ko and 2.4 kernel module files end with .o So maybe it is not such a good idea to recompile.
3. I have no idea. I assume it will be sometime in the next month or two, depending on how succesfull the initial (internal) tests go.