Fedora Core 4 x86_64 on a Shuttle XPC SN25P with an AMD 64 X2 (Dual core)
 

I recently got a Shuttle XPC SN25P with an AMD 64 X2 (dual core). It took me quite some time before I got Fedora Core 4 running on this machine. I am posting this for reference in case you have the same system and you want to run Fedora Core 4

Issue #1: FC4 does not see two processors after installation.
Cause #1: BIOS
Resolution #1: Update the Shuttle BIOS to the latest version available from the Shuttle website

Issue #2: Kernel panic after booting the FC4 2.6.11-1.1369 SMP kernel
Cause #2: The SMP kernel of the standard FC4 distribution does not support the Shuttle hardware.
Resolution #2: Do NOT boot into the SMP kernel after installation, choose the standard 2.6.11-1.1369 kernel. The kernel needs to be updated, which leads to:

Issue #3: System hangs while running update -fuv
Cause #3: auditd gets stuck during the update
Resolution #3: Do NOT boot the SMP kernel after installtion, but the standard 2.6.11-1.1369 kernel. Run update -fuvd (which means: download all packages, but do not install them). Change into the up2date directory (default /var/spool/up2date) and:
rpm -i kernel-2.6.13-1.1532_FC4.x86_64.rpm
rpm -i kernel-smp-2.6.13-1.1532_FC4.x86_64.rpm
rpm -i kernel-smp-devel-2.6.13-1.1532_FC4.x86_64.rpm
Reboot and boot into the standard (not the SMP) 2.6.13-1.1532_FC4 kernel
Change into the up2date directory and:
setenforce 0 (this disables selinux)
rpm -U audit-libs-1.0.4-1.fc4.x86_64.rpm
rpm -U audit-1.0.4-1.fc4.x86_64.rpm
rpm -U audit-libs-1.0.4-1.fc4.i386.rpm
rpm -U selinux-policy-targeted-1.27.1-2.6.noarch.rpm
Reboot into the standard (not the SMP) 2.6.13-1.1532_FC4 kernel and run update -fuv
Reboot into the SMP 2.6.13-1.1532_FC4 kernel.

Issue #4: Getting the error 'Your time source seems to be instable or some driver is hogging interrupts'. The system clock runs too fast under CPU load. Performance measured in terms of operations/second sometimes halves.
Cause #4: TSC is an unreliable time source on AMD64 X2 dual core
Resolution #4: Add notsc to the kernel command line in /etc/grub.conf:
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.13-1.1532_FC4smp ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet notsc

Regards,
Gijsbert Wiesenekker

'update -fuv' etc. should be read as 'up2date -fuv'

Thanks very much for posting this. Your post saved me a lot of work and worry.

I built a machine using a Gigabyte GA-K8NMF-9 motherboard and an Athlon XP3800+ Dual Core processor. The available kernels have moved on since your original post, and I obtained the 2.6.14-1.1637_FC4smp kernel and matching uniprocessor kernel. Otherwise I followed the same steps that you described and now have a fully working machine. It appears.

The problems that I found with the stock SMP kernel were crashes, the keyboard ceasing to work under X, some strange kernel messages appearing on the console, and the computer refusing to shut down properly. These have all (as far as I can see) disappeared with the updated kernel.

Cheers,

Ross-c

ok this is almost like what i posted myself, however this looks like a specific installation for a shuttle mobo which i'm about 90% sure i dno't have (think it's gigabyte). I'm a newbie to linux and i'm trying to install a os that can take full advantage of the dual core, which i'm guessing fendora does, yet i'm afraid i'll go to install it and if i run into hangs or things freezing up i'm not sure how i would fix them. GRAWWR, so freakin confusing. they need more support for dual core ! =P. I'm goign to end up giving up and installing FREEBSD...

DUDE! Right now, you are god! Thanks so very much for this post!