From: pham (pham@ucssun1.sdsu.edu)
Date: 09/09/93


From: pham@ucssun1.sdsu.edu (pham)
Subject: (Kernel Paging) crash during installation
Date: 9 Sep 1993 17:29:03 GMT


Linux SLS packages download from sunsite.unc.edu
  with a1 in 1.2 Mbytes FD and a2-x10 in 1.4 MBytes FD

Machine: 486DX 50Mhz, 8 Mbytes RAM
        Drive A: 1.2 MBytes
        Drive B: 1.44 MBytes
        1st IDE drive: Western Digital 340 MBytes
        2nd IDE drive: Corner 170 MBytes
        Local Bus IDE Controller (DC2000) (for FDs, HDs, 2 serial ports,
                                           1 parallel port)
        2MB Spider SVGA card (CL-GD5426 chip)
        Ethernet: NE2000 (Novell-Eagle), IRQ5 , IO-Base: 0x320

Partitions: 1st IDE: 1 - 20 Mbytes DOS
                        2 - 125 Mbytes Linux/MINIX mounted to /
                        3 - 150 Mbytes Linux/MINIX mounted to /user
                        4 - 30 Mbytes Linux/MINIX for swapper
            2nd IDE: all DOS

Be able to boot up from a1 floppy disk, recognize the hardware including
serial ports, parallel port, 2 IDE drives, vga, and NE2000 ethernet card
(at IRQ5 base 0x320). Allow to login (as 'root' or 'install'). Be able
to make swapper area (mkswap -c /dev/hda4 30690, swapon with 16Mbytes).
Be able to make filesystems (mk2fs -c /dev/hda2 128040, mk2fs -c /dev/hda3
153780). Be able to run 'doinstall /dev/hda2 /dev/hda3 /user' and select
for FULL installation from 1.44 Mbytes floppy drive.

PROBLEMS: in the process of installation, I keep getting get the message:

        VFS: Disk change detected on device 2/29

after put in the new disk that doinstall asks for. Even worse, that after
it reads in few disks it crashes and give out the following message:

        Unable to handle kernel paging request at address cda7f12c
        Oops: 0000
        EIP: 0008:0010C813
        EFLAGS: 00010206
        fs: 0017
        base: C0000000, limit: 00200000
        Pid: 0, process nr:0
         00 bf 90 90 90 0d 8b 07 8b 00
        task[0] (swapper) killed: unable to recover
        Kernel panic: Trying to free up swapper memory space
        In swapper task - not syncing

I did retry the whole installation process (start from begining with repartion,
reboot, reinstall) several more times (at least 5) but I keep getting the same
problem. Although when it crashes, it does not crash at the same address or
same disk or file. The most I got so far is be able to read in up to disk b3
then it crashes. Sometimes it crashes right at disk a2.

If anyone have any idea what causes the problem and how to fix it, I would
be appreciated.

Peter Pham,
email: pham@ucssun1.sdsu.edu