Problems with l4linux

[Adam Lackorzynski]

On Tue Nov 11, 2008 at 01:20:20 +1200, Valery V. Sedletski wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Nov 2008 22:25:19 +0100, Adam Lackorzynski wrote:
> 
> > 
> >> > The above message would mean that the X server is talking to the
> >> > L4Linux-server which is a no-go except the special X driver is used.
> >> >
> >> 
> >> I enabled X server stub in L4Linux configuration (a checkbox "Support for X 
> >> Window System driver" is enabled). And nitovlwm server is started. What could
> >> I miss then?
> >
> >This setup is not the easiest one and not easy to setup, it also
> >requires quite an effort for me to get this running. I recommend using
> >the X 'fbdev' driver which basically just works out of the box. It isn't
> >as CPU friendly as it could be but the handling is easy. Using a special
> >X driver is better in several ways but requires some care.
> 
> Yes, I know that this setup is not easy. For overlay_wm driver to work
> it is necessary to apply patches to X Server sources, as I read.

It's a driver.

> But I thought it must work with linux server with ordinary l4con/dope
> frambuffer driver. So, it won't, ok.

It's really supposed to work with the 'fbdev' X driver. At least it does
for me.

> -- When I checked on real machine
> (not with ramdisk), l4linux started and XServer starts OK.
> 
> But again the new problem -- with udev. First time for some reason
> udev didn't started and /sys filesystem did not mounted (it was some
> problem with initial ramdisk). When I mounted /sys manually, created
> all device nodes manually and started udevd from the command line,
> almost all worked -- bluetooth, usb, etc. But when I made initrd
> properly, I got an error "Kernel panic: not syncing, Out of memory and
> no killable processes" when starting udev. I can't copy/paste the boot
> log as nothing were saved in logs. How can I report this problem?  I
> can't also redirect output to file as system is not syncing (I booted
> with init=/bin/sh successfully and then panic message appears if
> launch /sbin/start_udev from the command line).

It would be helpful if you could construct an image that shows the
problem and which I could have to look at. Otherwise it's hard to me to
tell what's going on in your setup.

> I tried to upgrade udev to the latest version (I have ver. 1.14 and
> the newest one is 1.30) but no effect. Also I searched for this error
> message in google and found a few references to mailing lists where
> Fedora and Slackware users mentioned similar problem  -- it was not
> with udev itself but with latest kernels -- with 2.6.24 this were OK,
> but with 2.6.25 and later were these problems. So, I decided to try
> downgrading l4linux kernel. I tried many revisions from SVN from
> 2.6.27 down to 2.6.22 with no success -- Linux was either panicing or
> handing when starting udev.

I think downgrading Linux is not the way fixing this. Knowing the real
reason would be very helpful. Did you try strace e.g.?
 
> And the last, I tried latest linux kernels (2.6.27 and 2.6.28) without
> L4 -- they boot successfully and don't panic when starting udev.  So,
> I figured out that this is L4Linux-related problem as in ordinary
> linux kernels the problem seems to disappear.

Might very well be the case.
 
> So, must I report this as a bug? And what additional information I can
> give to solve the problem I have Mandriva 2008.0 distribution
> installed with linux kernel 2.6.22. It is installed on notebook with 2
> Gb of memory and 1.7 Ghz Pentium M (with Centrino) processor. I tried
> to give linux server 800 to 1800 Mb of memory and tried to play with
> initrd size, but with no effect. My notebook has no serial port, so I
> can't save the log. But I can install linux to my desktop machine, if
> needed. It has a serial port and serial cable.

Can you build me a little example which shows the problem? I think that
would be quite helpful.


Adam
-- 
Adam                 adam at os.inf.tu-dresden.de
  Lackorzynski         http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/~adam/