Dell inspiron will not run smp kernel
 

I have just installed Slackware 12 on a Dell Inspiron 1501 with a dual vore Athlon 64.

The only problem on installation was that huge.s-smp would not run but stalled at:

So I installed using huge.s

I then compiled my own kernel specifying Athlon 64

and it still stalls with the same error. How do I get an smp kernel working?

Note that Knoppix did recognise 2 processors and booted no problem.

TIA

I don't know if that is the correct choice for a Turion 64 processor. I never used Athlon64 on a kernel build. I just use generic x86_64.

Brian

I have not got a Turion

Now here's something interesting. I copied the knoppix 5.1 kernel to boot and tried using that. The system boots with two processors enabled.

So, it is either something in the configuration or something in the 2.6.21.5 kernel as opposed to the 2.6.19 kernel used by knoppix.

Next stop is to try and compile a kernel using the knoppix config

So I compiled a 2.6.19 kernel using the knoppix config. I highly unsatisfactory way of proceeding but it works.

Looks like you would need to compare the configs from both and find the differences.

Brian

Indeed. But it is not that simple. When I tried compiling a 2.6.21 kernel after running make oldconfig with the knoppix config it didn't work. This suggests that either the 21 kernel is the problem or it is one of the new options on 21 which wrongly configured.

Did you try .23?

No.

I thought I saw that there were some issues with .23 and wireless.

I suppose I could try Pat's hugesmp in current

I had the same problem with my inspiron 1501. But, it is easily fixed by compiling Pat's kernel from current. Just make sure to create an initrd for whatever file system you happen to be using.

first try to install with huge kernel and do a re-compilation of the same kernel with correct processor options (ie) processor type, sub architecture type, smp support, 64 bit support enabled and make module and install. now try booting the new kernel it should work.

Quick fyi, I'm assuming you need to use ndiswrapper as well, so if you do upgrade to 2.6.23.9 make sure you grab the latest ndiswrapper source. I had problems compiling older versions.

So is the conclusion that there is a problem with the 21 kernel and the dell inspiron?

pat's slackware kernels are compiled for i386 configuration with optimization for i686. this may be the problem in your case as your processor is not compatible with i386 configuration. i had the same problem with slackware 12, i recompiled the default 2.6.21.5-smp kernel with config file from /boot folder and in menuconfig i changed the processor type to match my processor type and chose the sub-architecture also to match my processor type and enabled all options to match my system configuration and saved the configuration and compiled the kernel, now the kernel is made as per the system's configuration and works in dual processor mode and all optimisations for the current processor type.

As I wrote in the first post. The first thing I tried was to recompile specifyng the particular processor and it still did not work.

It is all rather odd. I have a similar processor on my desktop and have never had this problem.