Hi everyone,

I've installed Slackware 12 (2.6.21.5) on a dual core VortexDX3 SBC (PC104+) form factor.

I've managed to get the non-smp kernel to boot, but with that, I'm only running on one of two available cores.

When I try to boot the SMP kernel, both the "huge" and "generic" (with an initrd made with mkinitrd) it hangs.

I've attached a screenshot here of the behaviour when trying to boot the generic smp kernel.

Any ideas how I can get one of the SMP kernels to boot ?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Attached Thumbnails

 

This SoC is based on an x86 clone. Linux support is listed here:

https://www.vortex86.com/index.php/news/2

It does not look encouraging at all - the legend at the bottom does not explain what blanks and "/" characters mean, nor what works specifically and what doesn't.

It's a list of some distributions, rather than solid data on kernel versions, requirements, options to enable/disable in kernel config, etc - it's of little use and a mess if I'm honest.

2.6.x is dead. The last 2.6.32.x longterm stable went EoL some years back, so you're very much on your own. So far as I can tell, Debian releases using the 3.12 - 4.19 kernels seem to install at least, but with no video acceleration possible - everything else is patchy. There seems to be no indication there that building the last 2.6.x (2.6.32) would make any difference, as there are blanks and "/" for those as well.

Notably the CPU does not support PAE (possibly unrelated). To my knowledge PAE in Linux x86_32 is linked to NX bit support and it's possible your CPU has some trouble with that, but hard to say - I'm not sure if the kernel you have is built with PAE/NX enabled or not - you can check via a grep of your kernel config for "CONFIG_X86_PAE". Earlier chips were 586 and lacked CMOV, but the one you have is the latest.

//edit: Looks like there was no PAE/NX enabled in Slackware kernel builds until Slackware 14.0 / Kernel 3.2.29 - so that rules it out.

Windows support is much more complete, so I would guess that, as these are x86 clones, that Windows is the main target platform: https://www.vortex86.com/index.php/news/3

All I can say is: good luck.

Thanks for advice, and that chart, maybe one of the older versions of Debian is the way to go then....I'm in an awkward situation with trying to get a data acquisition program to work, which was based on an old driver for the analog-to-digital converter which only works with kernels 2.6 or older, hence my "strangeness" with installing Slackware 12 (2.6.21.5).

I doubt earlier Debian releases will change much, but you could try Debian squeeze. That was based on the 2.6.32.x long term stable kernel.

More information about the device and driver you are referring to might be useful. Is there source available?

I found that Linux Mint 9 (2.6.32.21-generic) and Lubuntu 10.04 (2.6.32.21-generic) does properly see both cores of the VortexDX3, as does TinyCore9 (2.6.33.3), but Tiny Core9 looks to be not as easy to install to my HD ?, not sure, both Mint and Lubuntu installers see my existing Slackware install, so that seems good.

Maybe some progress there.

The device I'm using is from General Standards Corporation, 24DSI12 (PC104+), I do have the source code for the acquisition program, so I should be able to compile and get working with a newer kernel(in theory), but I thought it would be good to try to replicate what I have going right now, or rather to see if I can do that with a lower power VortexDX3 SBC, and then proceed from there to possibly update the kernel and the ADC driver with newer versions.

My acquisition program also uses ntp with a pps over a serial port and runs "real-time" Slackware (3.2.2), and some other tweaks with udma/100 being enforced (append) in the lilo, clocksource tcs, and some other stuf, so there's, from my point of view anyway, a lot of little extra tweaks involved too.

I'm not sure I really need "real-time" Linux, it sounds like there really is no such thing, just reduced latencies ? I'm hoping that it's not so important and just "regular" Linux would work okay.