fedora-xo 20090510 does not start X server

[Peter Robinson]

Hi Mikus,

>> 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.

Thanks for your testing. I wouldn't have expected the rootdelay to
have any effect one systems that get past the kernel and into init.
The cases I expect it to possibly have a positive effect are the cases
where it can't find the jffs2 FS or the ramdisk issues. I understand
the time it takes to reflash a device and appreciate the time you've
taken. If its easy to change the rootdelay you might like to increase
it to 500 for the XOs that you see the issues with the USB devices.
What this does is waits a period of time before the kernel tries to
mouth the rootfs to ensure that everything there that's needed to
mount it. It might turn out to be completely a non issue.

Peter