# kernel gentoo-sources-2.4.22-r5 error messages !!!

## ikshaar

Hi,

I was using gentoo-sources-2.4.22-r4 and upgraded to r5 this morning, but to my big surprise, it generates plenty of error message during boot...i cannot get a copy of them (using metalog I cannot find where it is saved), ... something about kernel unable to handle some calls....

At prompt, a simple ps would generate a segmentation fault, so I quickly return to r4. This computer is a production one, I could not risk a loss of data.

Anybody else ? there is known problem with that updated kernel ebuild ??

PS: I upgraded kernel several times before, no mistake there. And it's not related to the modules ; i recompiled everything that usually need (nvidia-kernel, network driver, i2c and lm-sensors)

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## PloreOSU

I'm seeing the same problem here; ps is causing a kernel fault.  The program returns "Segmentation Fault" and the console prints out the error listed below.

Everything else seems okay so far.  All my services are up and running (sshd, apache, courier-imap, samba).

Computer Specs:

AMD Athlon 1GHz

VIA KT-266A chipset

Intel 10/100 PCI ethernet

S3 video card (no X server installed, console only)

--- Log error ---

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000108

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel]  printing eip:

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000108

                - Last output repeated twice -

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel]  printing eip:

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] c01f4fc3

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] *pde = 00000000

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] Oops: 0000

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] CPU:    0

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] EIP:    0010:[<c01f4fc3>]    Not tainted

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] EFLAGS: 00010246

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] eax: 00000108   ebx: 00000000   ecx: 00008dfe   edx: 00000000

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] esi: 000000c8   edi: 000000b5   ebp: 000003ff   esp: cbe69f08

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] ds: 0018   es: 0018   ss: 0018

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] Process ps (pid: 2069, stackpage=cbe69000)

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] Stack: 00000000 c01f5276 00000108 c014fcb4 00000000 ffffffeb 00000001 cbe69f74

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel]        c01da465 cff61980 00000096 cbe69f7c 000003ff 00000000 cbe69f80 cbe16000

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel]        c98d8ae0 000003ff cbe16000 000003ff c01f2f11 cbe16000 cbe69f80 00000000

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] Call Trace:    [<c01f5276>] [<c01da465>] [<c01f2f11>] [<c01ce973>] [<c019bd87>]

Jan 15 16:24:24 [kernel] Code: 8b 08 89 c8 c1 e8 1f 31 d0 83 e0 01 01 c2 89 d0 31 d2 0f a4

Jan 15 16:24:39 [kernel] Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000108

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## FreeFly42

Can't really help you with the kernel problem, but to get access to your error messages you can use dmesg.  You can pipe it to a file or to a program like less to make it easier to manage:

dmesg > kernelMessages

dmesg | less

Look in /var/log/everything/current for your messages with metalog.  It will buffer them, so read the metalog man page to learn how to send a signal to the metalog daemon to stop/start buffering.  Browse around in /var/log and you'll find metalog creates a bunch of logs for various services there.

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## secondshadow

I was having a very similar problem running 'top' with the r5 sources. I didn't try ps. I was seeing some bizzare stuff at boot but it didn't seem to affect the systems stability so I let it go. The 'top' did the same thing so I decided to go back and use an older kernel...back to gaming-sources.

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## foosh

sorry to be so unhelpful, but my advice would be to invest your time in getting a 2.6-series kernel to work!!!  2.6 rocks hard core

you might try mm-sources 2.6.1

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## secondshadow

 *foosh wrote:*   

> sorry to be so unhelpful, but my advice would be to invest your time in getting a 2.6-series kernel to work!!!  2.6 rocks hard core
> 
> you might try mm-sources 2.6.1

 

I actually did try them. And I liked them. The system, as a whole, seemed more responsive, BUT my X sucked horribly because I was stuck using framebuffer. For some reason or another fglrx (the ATi driver) wasn't working properly. It built and loaded just fine. X found the card just fine. But when I tried to start X the screen just sat blank....for a LOOOOONG time. I'll be getting a new mobo and CPU (MSI K8T Neo w/ A64 3200+ probably) so I'm hoping its just an issue with the current drivers for my AGP in 2.6.1 in conjunction w/ fglrx, though my experiance with my current setup is that it is totally rock solid. I think 2.6 is just new and still has some kinks. I'll try again when 2.6.2 comes out.

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## Mit

I myself noticed this same problem (ps seg faulting and errors at bootup) when i did the upgrade to r5 at home, had to go back to r4 as this machine is my home router / firewall and i can't afford for it to be down.

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## Otto[FIN]

Had the same problem, when upgraded from r3 to r5, both uptime and top gave segmentation fault, so I downgraded to r4 and everything works.

Seems to be a common problem with r5.

Otto

Hardware:

TB800

ASUS A7V

768MB

TNT2 Ultra

----------

## lunarg

 *Quote:*   

> Seems to be a common problem with r5. 

 

Are you sure about that?

I upgraded from r2 to r5, and both 'top' and 'ps' seem to work just fine (even included ide-scsi support for the first time, and it all works very well; but that's off-topic)

Do mind that I have a nasty habit of copying my old .config into the new kernel dir. Maybe there's a problem with 'menuconfig' or 'config' (or whatever) with the r5?

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## ikshaar

I do the same, copying old .config and rerun make menuconfig... but this time wiht the results describe above...

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## Otto[FIN]

No, definitly not, but at least I'm not alone having problem with r5.

I too, used my old config file.

May it have something to do with the hardware? 

At least someone else have a Thunderbird and VIA chipset?

 *lunarg wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   Seems to be a common problem with r5.  
> 
> Are you sure about that?
> 
> I upgraded from r2 to r5, and both 'top' and 'ps' seem to work just fine (even included ide-scsi support for the first time, and it all works very well; but that's off-topic)
> ...

 

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## lunarg

Maybe it's a certain config option that has been changed since previous releases... Have you checked every option when you did 'make menuconfig'. 

This sometimes helps (it did with me, when I upgraded from 2.4.22 to 2.4.22-xfs, when I still ran Debian)...

If not, then I haven't got a clue either. Like I said, I don't have any problems with r5, but are there really that much differences between r5 and r4 ?

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## lunarg

 *Otto[FIN] wrote:*   

> No, definitly not, but at least I'm not alone having problem with r5.
> 
> I too, used my old config file.
> 
> May it have something to do with the hardware? 
> ...

 

Well that might be a problem....

I know someone who had similar problems with VIA chipsets and his IDE-controller (couldn't install any kind of linux without disconnecting his HPT372-controller, which was conflicting with the onboard IDE...

I myself am running a P4-chipset (Intel 845), so I haven't installed any VIA-related drivers in my kernel. Maybe it's a newly created bug in the gentoo-patch-r5 (since I run the 2.4.22-vanilla-sources on my pc, which is VIA).

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## deepthought

This is a known bug in gentoo-sources-2.4.22-r5.

You can fix the problems by 

1. deleting the patchset (as root): 

```
rm -f /usr/portage/distfiles/gentoo-sources-2.4.22-r5.patch.bz2
```

2. deleting the digest file (as root):

```
rm -f /usr/portage/sys-kernel/gentoo-sources/files/digest-gentoo-sources-2.4.22-r5
```

3. reinstalling the kernel package (as root):

```
emerge gentoo-sources
```

It may be necessary to manually recreate the digest file after downloading the updated package. You can do this by running (as root): 

```
ebuild  /usr/portage/sys-kernel/gentoo-sources/gentoo-sources-2.4.22-r5.ebuild digest
```

Then, recompile your kernel (with one of the working configurations), reboot and everything will be fine.

Regards,

Alexander

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## foosh

 *secondshadow wrote:*   

> I think 2.6 is just new and still has some kinks. I'll try again when 2.6.2 comes out.

 

the more time i spend w/ 2.6.1 the more I agree with you there...  i'm having myriad alsa problems.  bout to go crazyyyyyyasdfaaerg34g

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## tempdude

i'm trying to do a new install of gentoo and chose gentoo-sources for my kernel which i built manually. i have a backup kernel that still will boot the system, i think it's vanilla-sources, but don't remember for sure. i read the bug report page and did everything as per instructed on this forum and from the bug report. system will not boot using gentoo-sources. i had a prior gentoo-sources-r4 which worked fine. but now the new one after following this thread and the bug thread my system locks up completely. i saw a post on the bug forum identical to my original problem but after i did a new emerge of gentoo-sources after the fix is supposed to be in the source tree it simply won't boot. the screen appears to be info from the other kernel shutting down the system.  last thing it says is restarting system.  i dunno i'm at a loss as to how to proceed.  i'm building this box to use as  a mythtv box and i really like the gentoo-sources kernel.  just wish it would work for me.    :Confused: 

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## pjp

Moved from Installing Gentoo.

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## lunarg

 :Sad: 

So far my not-having-this-problem...

Running vmware causes a major lockup of my system.... Doing 'dmesg' shows me a NULL pointer exception, similar to the one everyone seems to have. I guess it's back to a previous kernel, or at least until r6 or a fixed r5 is ready.

I'm going to try the method explained above in the future, but for now I don't have much time to do that...

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## tempdude

i missed this option when i compiled.

< >         Intel PIIXn chipsets support

works now

 :Wink: 

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## odborg

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> So far my not-having-this-problem... 
> 
>  Running vmware causes a major lockup of my system.... Doing 'dmesg' shows me a NULL pointer exception, similar to the one everyone seems to have. I guess it's back to a previous kernel, or at least until r6 or a fixed r5 is ready. 
> ...

 

take a look at this bug report https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=37774#c6.

It seems to help (at least to me as starting winamp 5 no longer results in a crash from vmware)

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## lunarg

Thanks. The fix seems to work for me too (Flash MX 2k4 doesn't make a zombie of vmware-vmx).

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## ikshaar

Cool, the update works fine... running r5 now   :Cool: 

Follow-up question :  I emerge gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.1 during my troubled time. Now I removed it for space purpose (and because I am not ready to make the jump) but now if I do an emerge -uUD world -p, I got :

```
[ebuild     UD] x11-libs/openmotif-2.1.30-r3 [2.2.2-r1]

[ebuild     U ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-colorspace-0.6.4 [0.6.3]

[ebuild     U ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-xvideo-0.6.4 [0.6.3]

[ebuild  N    ] sys-kernel/gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.1

[ebuild  N    ] dev-perl/digest-base-1.05

[ebuild     U ] dev-perl/Digest-MD5-2.33 [2.26]

[ebuild     U ] dev-perl/gtk-perl-0.7008-r10 [0.7008-r9]

[ebuild     U ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-libpng-0.6.4 [0.6.3]

[ebuild     U ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-gnomevfs-0.6.4 [0.6.3]

[ebuild     U ] dev-perl/URI-1.28 [1.23]

[ebuild     U ] dev-perl/libwww-perl-5.69-r2 [5.69-r1]

[ebuild     U ] media-sound/xmms-1.2.7-r23 [1.2.7-r20]

[ebuild     U ] app-cdr/simplecdrx-1.3.1 [1.2.2]
```

with gentoo-dev-sources being emerged .... somehow it seems that emerging it once set up some flag and it keeps coming back now...

Any clue how to stop that ?

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## mrkahuna

 *ikshaar wrote:*   

> 
> 
> with gentoo-dev-sources being emerged .... somehow it seems that emerging it once set up some flag and it keeps coming back now...
> 
> Any clue how to stop that ?

 

Is sys-kernel/gentoo-dev-sources in your /var/cache/edb/world file?  If so, does removing it from there help?

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## ikshaar

No, it's not in the world file.

I even tried to delete the dep directory to force it to be recreated but it still put gentoo-dev-sources.

Thx anyway- 

EDIT : I just found that my "virtual/linux-sources" is not set. Obviously removing gentoo-dev-sources removed it, besides the fact that I have others sources emerged. Anybody knows what file control that ? Can I add it the file by hand ?

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## ikshaar

Ok I replied to myself...

I found the file /var/cache/edb/virtuals... Obviously unmerging gentoo-dev-sources did not clean the entries done in the virtuals file.

Once I removed them by hand, it works fine.

----------

## guitard00d

 *deepthought wrote:*   

> This is a known bug in gentoo-sources-2.4.22-r5.

 

It sure is disturbing that Gentoo is releasing so many critical packages lately as stable when they are anything but stable. My first experience was with the current would-be stable version of proftpd, then it was the new genkernel, now the 2.4.22-r5 kernel. They've got things so hosed up right now that you can follow the x86 installation instructions to the letter and you'll still end up with a non-working system.

Somebody really needs to get their sh*t together and quit embarassing the Gentoo world with their half-a$$ed decisons to call things "stable".

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## ikshaar

Well in that case, it was not really unstable... I got scared but it was not as much a trouble as I thought.

Otherwise, I can just say that what you complained about is probably a consequence of using a cutting edge distribution. There is always the risk of some glitchs going through the testing phase and discover only later. I don't think any distribution is exempt of them. Of course Gentoo being the most "tweakable" distribution, the number of possible configuration is probably equal to the number of computer running Gentoo (ok minus the clusters  :Wink:   ). So these risks are higher.

Now as always, everything is a matter of compromise...   :Rolling Eyes: 

----------

## deepthought

But nevertheless, guitard00d is right: 

<rant>

What - if not such things - is the KEYWORD stuff (~arch) for? I was quite startled to see genkernel compile my kernel perfectly, reboot and things don't work (tm). This shouldn't happen at all; not for critical packages and not for anything else marked as "stable".

This has nothing to do with "hey I use Gentoo because I like living on the edge"; it was just wrong (tm) to make the "go to stable" decision for the r5 kernel.

</rant>

Regards,

Alexander

----------

