[Soekris] net 5501 and RHEL5.2

[Przemyslaw Maszenda]

Hi

I try to boot and install RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.2 on net5501-70 
(with sandisk CF but this doesn't matter, I think), but without success.

With original RHEL5.2 kernel booting from CF (CF was installed on 
another PC) or booting over PXE I received:

############################################################################
Linux version 2.6.18-92.1.1.el5 
(brewbuilder at hs20-bc1-7.build.redhat.com) (gcc v
ersion 4.1.2 20071124 (Red Hat 4.1.2-41)) #1 SMP Thu May 22 09:01:29 EDT 
2008
BIOS-provided physical RAM map:

[...]

TCP bic registered
Initializing IPsec netlink socket
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
powernow-k8: Processor cpuid 5a2 not supported
BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 
0000000
0
  printing eip:
c041041c
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0000 [#1]
SMP
last sysfs file:
Modules linked in:
CPU:    0
EIP:    0060:[<c041041c>]    Not tainted VLI
EFLAGS: 00010202   (2.6.18-92.1.1.el5 #1)
EIP is at powernowk8_init+0x5e/0x1c2
eax: 00000000   ebx: 00000000   ecx: 0000000e   edx: 00000020
esi: 00000000   edi: c06242c3   ebp: 00000000   esp: c147cfa0
ds: 007b   es: 007b   ss: 0068
Process swapper (pid: 1, ti=c147c000 task=c147daa0 task.ti=c147c000)
Stack: 00000000 c071bbe8 00000000 c06ec5a8 c06e7fd8 c0404dee 00000202 
c06ec42b
        00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 c06ec42b 
00000000
        00000000 c0405c3b 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 
00000000
Call Trace:
  [<c06ec5a8>] init+0x17d/0x24a
  [<c0404dee>] ret_from_fork+0x6/0x1c
  [<c06ec42b>] init+0x0/0x24a
  [<c06ec42b>] init+0x0/0x24a
  [<c0405c3b>] kernel_thread_helper+0x7/0x10
  =======================
Code: 83 3d 20 41 67 c0 01 75 40 83 3d 84 d4 76 c0 00 75 37 b8 01 00 00 
00 bf c3
  42 62 c0 e8 0a 15 19 00 b9 0f 00 00 00 89 c6 49 78 08 <ac> ae 75 08 84 
c0 75 f5
  31 c0 eb 04 19 c0 0c 01 85 c0 75 0a c7
EIP: [<c041041c>] powernowk8_init+0x5e/0x1c2 SS:ESP 0068:c147cfa0
  <0>Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception

############################################################################


I recompiled kernel from redhat .src.rpm (with rpmbuild, with all 
patches ...), with Geode GX/LX CPU. I included support for AMD 
powernow-k8. I tried to boot and I received similar as before:

############################################################################
Linux version 2.6.18-SOEKRIS (root at vivaldi) (gcc version 4.1.2 20071124 
(Red Hat
  4.1.2-42)) #1 SMP Fri Jun 20 07:58:23 CEST 2008

[...]

TCP bic registered
Initializing IPsec netlink socket
NET: Registered protocol family 1
NET: Registered protocol family 17
powernow-k8: Processor cpuid 5a2 not supported
BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 
0000000
0
  printing eip:
c04104f5
*pde = 00000000
Oops: 0000 [#1]
SMP
last sysfs file:
Modules linked in:
CPU:    0
EIP:    0060:[<c04104f5>]    Not tainted VLI
EFLAGS: 00010202   (2.6.18-SOEKRIS #1)
EIP is at powernowk8_init+0x5e/0x1c2
eax: 00000000   ebx: 00000000   ecx: 0000000e   edx: c06e7fe4
esi: 00000000   edi: c0626270   ebp: 00000000   esp: dffe9fa0
ds: 007b   es: 007b   ss: 0068
Process swapper (pid: 1, ti=dffe9000 task=dffe8aa0 task.ti=dffe9000)
Stack: 00000000 c071da88 00000000 c06ee5a9 c06e9fd8 c0404dce 00000202 
c06ee42c
        00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 c06ee42c 
00000000
        00000000 c0405c1b 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 
00000000
Call Trace:
  [<c06ee5a9>] init+0x17d/0x24a
  [<c0404dce>] ret_from_fork+0x6/0x1c
  [<c06ee42c>] init+0x0/0x24a
  [<c06ee42c>] init+0x0/0x24a
  [<c0405c1b>] kernel_thread_helper+0x7/0x10
  =======================
Code: 83 3d 20 61 67 c0 01 75 40 83 3d 84 f4 76 c0 00 75 37 b8 01 00 00 
00 bf 70
  62 62 c0 e8 81 29 19 00 b9 0f 00 00 00 89 c6 49 78 08 <ac> ae 75 08 84 
c0 75 f5
  31 c0 eb 04 19 c0 0c 01 85 c0 75 0a c7
EIP: [<c04104f5>] powernowk8_init+0x5e/0x1c2 SS:ESP 0068:dffe9fa0
  <0>Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception

#######


I know, I lame :), but what should I do run to RHEL5.2 with net5501-70?

1) Should I recompile kernel? (For me is important to have kernel 
version and patchlevel exactly as RHEL5.2, changing arch is acceptable)

2) For best performance and stability what should I choose in 
menuconfig. Which arch and CPU?

PS.
I checked that over PXE I could boot kernel from RHEL4.6 ...

thanks.