fedora-xo 20090510 does not start X server

[Mikus Grinbergs]

> Can you try adding a "rootdelay=300" to the kernel command line in the
> olpc.fth and see if that helps the issues your seeing when you have
> usb devices attached?

Added that to three different XO-1 machines:


  *  rawhide-xo 20090416 (USB):  This system was giving me lots of 
trouble this morning:  first with stalls during boot-up at the 
"unknown filesystem" message, and later in the morning with stalls 
during boot-up after showing the "Loading ramdisk" message.  Just 
now did multiple boot-ups after adding "rootdelay=300".  When I had 
taken the system down with 'Restart', boot-up came up into Sugar the 
way it was supposed to.

But when I then took the system down with 'Shutdown', the system 
would always stall during boot-up after showing the "Loading 
ramdisk" message.  Had to completely re-flash that system (I now 
installed rawhide-xo 20090426, since that was the most recent 
rawhide-xo that worked).  On the first couple of boot-up attempts, 
the new build stalled at the "unknown filesystem" message.  By 
repeatedly trying, I got past that point and added "rootdelay=300". 
  After that, it did not stall with the "unknown filesystem" message.

This system still all too often gets the boot-up stall after showing 
the "Loading ramdisk" message.  Luckily, pulling the USB devices 
(and trying and trying) eventually allowed me to boot-up.  Since it 
takes me more than an hour of my time to re-flash (and re-customize) 
the system once I can't make headway against these boot-up stalls, 
please don't ask me again to try to create such error situations.


  *  rawhide-xo 20090426 (nothing in USB sockets):  This system has 
not recently experienced any stalls during boot-up.  But this 
morning boot-up on this system had trouble starting Sugar (but not 
Gnome).  Added "rootdelay=300" and now several boot-ups went 
correctly into Sugar.  [This experience shows the __difficulty__ of 
looking for patterns of behavior -- I have no idea whether Sugar now 
being able to start easily was happenstance, or was caused by 
something having changed within this system.]


  *  rawhide-xo 20090510 (USB):  The last time this system showed me 
the "unknown filesystem" message was once - right after installing 
20090510.  Since then, boot-up has not stalled for me on this 
system, neither before nor after adding "rootdelay=300".  But for me 
20090510 does not start the X server, whether or not "rootdelay=300" 
has been added.


Bottom line:  Seems to help;  does not hurt;  needs more experience.

mikus