Helium Sources (kernel patchset)

hirakendu · Guru Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 386 Location: san diego

(Updated 20110403, latest is 2.6.38-helium0. )

Yet another linux kernel patchset, helium sources:

vipernicus

hirakendu · Guru Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 386 Location: san diego

Actually, yes. Just kept it so to keep the name short ;-)

. Of course, if you meant to reflect the RC nature of the kernel, it should indeed be there. In fact, I forgot to mention like all other patchsets that it could be pretty unstable. As an aside, last few months have been a rough time for me for playing with kernels, since say december - perhaps since 2.6.18 or 2.6.19. Too many changes and new features, but overall the kernel releases have been unstable. Although there is hope. 2.6.21 has been somewhat usable on my athlon 64x2 machine (its a via k8t890 mobo) with a ton of bootloader options and workarounds. 2.6.22 looks pretty promising. Yesterday I was in a mood of euphoria with the powertop patches - for some reason my machine seems to be flying (perhaps could be just a placebo effect - but its only through powertop I came to know how much irqbalance and nolapic_timer were pulling it down - as of now interrupts per second are down to < 100

). So much joy that I thought to cook up a patchset :p. But missing the good old days of nitro-sources and beyond-sources.

I have been so irked over the last few months to see the oops messages, that today morning when I ssh'ed into this machine to see this on my newly compiled kernel (the usual suspect - nvidia-drivers 9755)...
WARNING: at mm/slab.c:777 __find_general_cachep()
[<c0188aef>] __kmalloc+0x9f/0xd0
[<f9970a4c>] os_alloc_mem+0x5e/0xa3 [nvidia]
[<f9650bfa>] _nv003401rm+0x16/0x28 [nvidia]
[<f9636546>] _nv002573rm+0x202/0x384 [nvidia]
[<f9659796>] rm_set_interrupts+0x142/0x15c [nvidia]
[<f962f5dd>] _nv004362rm+0x81/0xb8 [nvidia]
[<f965be1d>] _nv002557rm+0x3d/0x770 [nvidia]
[<f965c123>] _nv002557rm+0x343/0x770 [nvidia]
[<c016cdd0>] find_get_page+0x20/0x60
[<c016f7a8>] filemap_nopage+0x238/0x340
[<c018be57>] do_sync_read+0xc7/0x110
[<f9659a7c>] rm_ioctl+0x1c/0x24 [nvidia]
[<f996e3e9>] nv_kern_ioctl+0x2f0/0x361 [nvidia]
[<c0384641>] pci_create_sysfs_dev_files+0x141/0x310
[<f996e48f>] nv_kern_unlocked_ioctl+0x18/0x1d [nvidia]
[<f996e477>] nv_kern_unlocked_ioctl+0x0/0x1d [nvidia]
[<c0197afb>] do_ioctl+0x2b/0xc0
[<c0121116>] do_page_fault+0x346/0x640
[<c0197bec>] vfs_ioctl+0x5c/0x290
[<c0197e5d>] sys_ioctl+0x3d/0x70
[<c01040c2>] sysenter_past_esp+0x5f/0x85
[<c0384641>] pci_create_sysfs_dev_files+0x141/0x310
=======================
... I thought, its yet another oops (oh no, not again!). Fortunately, it was just a warning. The pleasant surprise - when I came to my office - X was still fine and machine didnt lock up (those are the most frequent things over last few months

). And so we live dangerously - but enjoying the flight ;-)

.
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Helium Sources || Gentoo Minimal Livecd

deno · Guru Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Posts: 411

Hi! Cannot compile vmware-modules here with this kernel. 32 bit system.

vipernicus · Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:08 am Post subject:

hirakendu · Guru Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 386 Location: san diego

Thanks for the update

. (Sorry for the delay. Had a 3 hr lecture to attend in between.) I have the same problem. But from the thread, it seems to be pretty broken. Aside, /usr/src/linux/include/asm/page.h seems fine (the lines around 110 to 113) and seems to be a syntax confusion between c and c++ (?). Using virtualbox for the moment

. (I mostly use vmware, just recently tried out virtualbox - and found it fine - happy with either of them

.)
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Helium Sources || Gentoo Minimal Livecd

chittoor · n00b Joined: 09 Apr 2006 Posts: 35

Hi Das!! (Hirakendu) nice to see you here on Gentoo Forums. Will give your Helium a try :wink:

Indeed the 22 series will be most usable kernel in the libata era

. Hoping that the stable release comes out as promised :twisted:

Phlogiston

hirakendu · Guru Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 386 Location: san diego

Ok, added thinkpad stuff also (from kamikaze's patches ;-)

). Actually there was some conflict with the hdaps from powertop yesterday, so I whimsically ignored thinkpad patches yesterday at 3 am ;-)

. Anyway, here they are. I believe its 'just' the tp-smapi and some ipw, bluetooth, hdaps, ec stuff or is it more than that ?
Anyway, it doesnt matter to me as I dont have hdaps :p.

So as of now, from what I have checked, almost all other additional drivers from portage work, except vmware-modules. Also included ipw3945 (from kamikaze) in the kernel itself, as the one from portage wants things the old way as in 2.6.21.

So all is fine on my desktop (athlon64x2, via k8t890, nv gf 7300gs) and also on my notebook hp dv5000t (core duo t2050, 945 chipset, nv go force 7400, ipw3945 and a stupid intel hda with conexant codecs :p).
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Helium Sources || Gentoo Minimal Livecd

Phlogiston · Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 9:44 am Post subject:

Phlogiston · Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 9:45 am Post subject:

hirakendu · Guru Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 386 Location: san diego

. forgot to mention, its the same name :
http://hirakendu.mooo.com/helium-sources/2.6.22-helium1/2.6.22-helium1.patch.bz2
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Helium Sources || Gentoo Minimal Livecd

Phlogiston · Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 11:23 am Post subject:

Phlogiston · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:52 am Post subject:

Hmm did you include linux phc? Becuase undervolting does not work here. And squashfs seems to not be there too:

Phlogiston · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:00 am Post subject:

Oh wait my fault

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Workstation: 5.1 SurroundSound, LIRC remote control; Laptop [IBM-T43]: patched sources, s2disk/ram, fingerprint sensor

Phlogiston · Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 12:13 pm Post subject:

Its me again

I can't boot but its seems to be a .22 issue. I heard that there are a lot of sata changes. Maybe thats why my kernel does not find my harddrive. Futhermore at boot it says that the option:

hirakendu · Guru Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 386 Location: san diego

oopsie. looks that i accidentally unsubscribed from the thread. (i have bookmarked this thread for now ;-)

.)

About the hard-drive not recognized, perhaps you are a victim of hda changing to sda for newer kernel. Btw, in my default .config, I have no ide support (i.e., the old ata/atapi/mfm/rll), and its only through sata and pata drivers. So, two options :
1) deselect pata drivers and choose the old ide support
or
2) change all references of /dev/hd* to /dev/sd* - both in bootloader and fstab. Keep a livecd like slax or dsl handy ;-)

.

And although not formally said, I have put up a 2.6.22-helium2 patch which is simply kamikaze-rc4 patch with 4k-stacks disabled by default and a patch for creating /dev/loop* entries from mm-patches. And so it also inherits phc patches ;-)

. Links :

http://137.110.115.18/helium-sources/2.6.22-helium2/2.6.22-helium2.patch.bz2 (the patch : applies on 2.6.21 vanilla)
http://137.110.115.18/helium-sources/2.6.22-helium2/ (whatever)

PS : If anyone is using virtualbox, I suggest to upgrade to 1.4.0. On 1.3.8, my livecd with this same config just stops loading arbirtarily. (No messages, apparently just dozes off :p.) I dont know whether its a issue with the guest or host with this kernel. Anyway, on 1.4.0, its all fine.
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Helium Sources || Gentoo Minimal Livecd

hirakendu · Guru Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 386 Location: san diego

Some more updates on that :

1) Your kernel config looks fine to me. Possibly you can add "Generic PCI IDE Chipset Support" (under ata/atapi/mfm/rll support). Actually, so far as I know, there is no harm in enabling both the ide driver stack and pata driver stack in the kernel. In fact, can you just quickly see through the kernel boot messages scrolling by (do disable the 'quiet' option in bootloader) as to whether your drives are detected as sda (or hda) or something?

2) The libata.atapi_enabled=1 doesn't seem to bother me. The output of my :

$ dmesg | grep libata

is :

Kernel command line: root=/dev/sda5 vga=794 resume2=swap:/dev/sda6 libata.atapi_enabled=1 quiet noirqbalance acpi_sleep=s3_mode,s3_bios
libata version 2.21 loaded.

Some history about that option. Apparently its required only if you are using the pata drivers, which you have anyway disabled. Aside, it was required on thinkpads on earlier kernels for enabling dma on dvd drives. Incidentally, its not required on most systems. On my hp notebook, if and only if I disable ahci sata in bios, its required to enable dma on my dvd drive. (Ps : if I disable ahci sata, there is no dma on my dvd drive on windows

. And there was a long workaround to get ahci sata working on my windows when i reinstalled it

. Incidentally, windows xp install disks dont even recognize this intel ahci sata controller

.)
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Helium Sources || Gentoo Minimal Livecd

Phlogiston · Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 8:04 am Post subject:

Ok first of all thanks for your kind help. I was always using sata drivers on this laptop (by the way it is a thinkpad and I exactly had those dma problems with my drive

), so I'm using /dev/sda.

So hmm I really don't know what to change to get it working I think. Furhtermore I have no options about sata/ide in my bios.
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Workstation: 5.1 SurroundSound, LIRC remote control; Laptop [IBM-T43]: patched sources, s2disk/ram, fingerprint sensor

hirakendu · Guru Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 386 Location: san diego

Hmm, seems funny because you have a pretty generic (usual intel ich6) chipset. May I suggest something - to deselect the ide drivers and go for the pata drivers. On the safe side, I am pretty sure my generic config will surely work

. (yes, it will take some time to compile because of great many drivers, but there will not be any performance gap.)

PS : Your kernel config is pretty clean - but you sure wanted smp disabled ;-)

? Local apic is also disabled. Btw, you also have pci express support disabled - do your graphics card and ethernet card still work ? (You also have disabled wireless). Oh ya, most importantly, I also see reiserfs disabled. Hope you are just using ext3.
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Helium Sources || Gentoo Minimal Livecd

Phlogiston · Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 9:06 am Post subject:

hirakendu · Guru Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 386 Location: san diego

The pci-e stuff sounds interesting. Especially because your network card (in lspci) says its pci-e. Meanwhile, let me try out without pci-e on my notebook ;-)

. (the amusing thing at my machine is that nvidia-settings show its a 16x pci-e graphics card. wonder why intel_agp is also loaded as a module. perhaps still required.)

Reiserfs - its good. What more can I say

. I think I have been using it ever since I came to know what a filesystem is :p. Anyway, whatever works for you

. (PS : Never put the spanner on a working system, no matter how broken it is - as long as it works ;-)

.)
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Helium Sources || Gentoo Minimal Livecd

hirakendu · Guru Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 386 Location: san diego

Also added some precompiled sources. For a try, may use :
http://hirakendu.mooo.com/helium-sources/kernel-2.6.22-h2-precompiled.tar.bz2
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Helium Sources || Gentoo Minimal Livecd

Phlogiston · Posted: Mon Jun 11, 2007 7:28 am Post subject:

hey hirakendu

I disabled all the ide stuff and the kernel booted

So far so good, but the following did not work:

linux phc (undervolting) and thinkpad fanctontrol. Until that kernel adding the option "ibm_acpi.experimental=1" was sufficent to be able to control the fan speed. Do you know if there were any changes?
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Workstation: 5.1 SurroundSound, LIRC remote control; Laptop [IBM-T43]: patched sources, s2disk/ram, fingerprint sensor

hirakendu · Guru Joined: 24 Jan 2007 Posts: 386 Location: san diego

Nope, frankly I have no clue about undervolting and fan control. But tell me something - so without this thinkpad fan control, does your notebook cpu fan keep whining at full speed all the time? Because on my hp dv5000, I dont have any fancy things in the kernel (except the usual acpi fan support), and things seem fine - its quiet usually and whines only while doing intensive tasks.
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Helium Sources || Gentoo Minimal Livecd