[K12OSN] Network boot hangs

[Peter Trifonov]

Terrell,

All Pentium-3 and Pentium-4 clients work perfectly. The problem arises only
with Pentium-1 ones. 
Looks like the init executable contains some instructions not available on
i586. 

With best regards,
P. Trifonov


> -----Original Message-----
> From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-bounces at redhat.com] On
> Behalf Of "Terrell Prude Jr."
> Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 3:15 AM
> To: Support list for open source software in schools.
> Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Network boot hangs
> 
> I've seen this happen before, back when something was haywire with my
> client's NIC; it was one of those gradual failures.  Swapping NIC's did
> the trick then.  I've also (rarely) seen an NFS misconfig do it; this
> is rare because it's autoconfig'd during the K12LTSP setup.  I'm
> assuming here that you've left /etc/dhcpd.conf (or /etc/dhcpd-
> k12ltsp.conf) at its stock config.
> 
> Can you try this:  boot a thick client Linux box, try mounting
> /opt/ltsp/i386 from the LTSP server, and copying everything under there
> to a test directory on the thick client?
> 
> Also, do you have another kind of thin client to try out to see if it
> happens there, too?
> 
> --TP
> 
> _______________________________
> Do you GNU <http://www.gnu.org> ?
> Microsoft Free since 2003 <http://www.cmosnetworks.com> --the ultimate
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> 
> 
> 
> Peter Trifonov wrote:
> 
> 	Rob, thanks a lot for the suggestion. I have tried gPXE, but with
> the same
> 	result.
> 	The problem arises AFTER Linux kernel is downloaded from the
> server and
> 	started.
> 	The kernel says:
> 
> 	...
> 	Creating new ramdisk to hold our new rootfs
> 	Mounting root filesystem: ... from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx [Some NFS
> traffic is
> 	observed at the server at this moment]
> 	Setting up the new root ramdisk area
> 	Doing the switchroot
> 	SwitchRoot v0.1 - Copyright 2005 Linux based systems design
> 	Freeing ram used by initramfs
> 
> 
> 	After this the system stops doing anything.
> 
> 
> 	With best regards,
> 	P. Trifonov
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 		-----Original Message-----
> 		From: k12osn-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:k12osn-
> bounces at redhat.com] On
> 		Behalf Of Rob Owens
> 		Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 6:21 PM
> 		To: Support list for open source software in schools.
> 		Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Network boot hangs
> 
> 		I had a similar problem and found that some clients would
> not boot with
> 		an etherboot cd, but they would boot with a gPXE cd.  Try
> that.  You
> 		can get it from www.rom-o-matic.net.  When it comes to the
> driver
> 		selection part, choose gpxe from the drop-down list.
> 
> 		-Rob
> 
> 		On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 10:54:44AM +0300, Peter Trifonov
> wrote:
> 
> 
> 			Hello,
> 
> 			I have installed K12LTSP 5-EL/32 bit onto a server
in
> my network. It
> 
> 
> 		works
> 
> 
> 			fine with relatively modern client PCs.
> 			However, booting 12-year old HP Vectra PCs (Pentium-
> 200 CPU, 96 MB
> 
> 
> 		RAM)
> 
> 
> 			hangs with the words "Freeing ram used by
initramfs".
> 			The system is not really frozen, but nothing
happens.
> I have a few
> 
> 
> 		such
> 
> 
> 			PCs, and all of them exhibit such behavior. I have
> observed some NFS
> 
> 
> 		traffic
> 
> 
> 			between the server and the client before it hangs.
> 
> 			Does anyone have any suggestions what can be wrong
> with the clients?
> 
> 
> 
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