palo-1.4 broken on 32bit ?

after apt-get upgrading to palo_1.4_hppa.deb it seems, that palo-1.4 isn't able any longer to boot up a 32bit Linux kernel on a 32bit Machine. I've run several tests on a B180L, and only after downgrading to palo-1.3 I was able to boot again.

Am I the only one seeing this problem ?
Anyone maybe has an idea what has been changed ?

Quoted 5 lines · Helge Deller

after apt-get upgrading to palo_1.4_hppa.deb it seems, that palo-1.4 isn't able any longer to boot up a 32bit Linux kernel on a 32bit Machine. I've run several tests on a B180L, and only after downgrading to palo-1.3 I was able to boot again.

Am I the only one seeing this problem ?
Anyone maybe has an idea what has been changed ?

Well, it works just fine for me:

redscar:~# palo -v
palo version 1.4 bame@c3k Fri Mar 26 16:18:35 MST 2004
ELF32 executable
Partition Start(MB) End(MB) Id Type
1               1     257   82 swap
2             258     277   f0 Palo
3             278    2045   83 ext2
4            2046    4094   83 ext2
F0 partition start sector 527744 length 41230
do_ra(1, 5, 3, -1, '3/boot/vmlinux initrd=3/boot/initrd.img
root=/dev/sda3 HOME=/ console=ttyS0 console=tty0', 4, -1, 270204928,
21109760)
check_bootloader 213
checksum(0x2f2b0, 36864) = 0x00000000
ipl: addr 270204928 size 36864 entry 0x0
 ko 0x0 ksz 0 k64o 0x0 k64sz 0 rdo 0 rdsz 0
<3/boot/vmlinux initrd=3/boot/initrd.img root=/dev/sda3 HOME=/
console=ttyS0 console=tty0>
check_bootloader 650
checksum(0x262a8, 36864) = 0x00000000
ipl: addr 270204928 size 36864 entry 0x0
 ko 0x101f0000 ksz 3421952 k64o 0x0 k64sz 0 rdo 0 rdsz 0
<3/boot/vmlinux initrd=3/boot/initrd.img root=/dev/sda3 HOME=/
console=ttyS0 console=tty0>
redscar:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
cpu family      : PA-RISC 1.1e
cpu             : PA7300LC (PCX-L2)
cpu MHz         : 180.000000
model           : 9000/778/B180L
model name      : Merlin L2+ 180 (9000/778/B180L)
hversion        : 0x00005040
sversion        : 0x00000481
I-cache         : 64 KB
D-cache         : 64 KB (WB)
ITLB entries    : 96
DTLB entries    : 96 - shared with ITLB
BTLB fixed      : max. 16384 pages, pagesize=4096 (64MB)
BTLB fix-entr.  : 0 instruction, 0 data (8 combined)
BTLB var-entr.  : 0 instruction, 0 data (0 combined)
bogomips        : 119.60
software id     : 2012752031

However, there have been several reports of intermittent failures with later versions of palo; if you could actually track the issue down, that would be greatly appreciated.

The current thought is that it's a command line issue (i.e. embedding a commmand line >128 characters in palo causes failures).

Hi all,

after apt-get upgrading to palo_1.4_hppa.deb it seems, that palo-1.4 isn't able any longer to boot up a 32bit Linux kernel on a 32bit Machine. I've run several tests on a B180L, and only after downgrading to palo-1.3 I was able to boot again.

Am I the only one seeing this problem ?

Anyone maybe has an idea what has been changed ?

Quoted 6 lines · Helge Deller

Hi all,

after apt-get upgrading to palo_1.4_hppa.deb it seems, that palo-1.4 isn't able any longer to boot up a 32bit Linux kernel on a 32bit Machine. I've run several tests on a B180L, and only after downgrading to palo-1.3 I was able to boot again.

Am I the only one seeing this problem ?

No - I've been seeing it on the c3600 as well.
I haven't tried 64-bit kernels.
And downgrading iplboot to 1.3 also solves it for me too.

palo 1.3 deb is available here in case someone has upgraded:

	http://iou.parisc-linux.org/~grundler/palo/palo_1.3_hppa.deb

thanks to paul bame for keeping those around.

Quoted 1 line

Anyone maybe has an idea what has been changed ?

nope...have to look at palo since it doesn't matter which kernel I attempt to boot, it doesn't work.

Note that I tried to build palo v1.2 and that failed the same way. So it's possibly a compiler issue with real-mode code. (Not that the compiler knows the difference...)

Quoted 6 lines

Hi all,

after apt-get upgrading to palo_1.4_hppa.deb it seems, that palo-1.4 isn't able any longer to boot up a 32bit Linux kernel on a 32bit Machine. I've run several tests on a B180L, and only after downgrading to palo-1.3 I was able to boot again.

Am I the only one seeing this problem ?

No - I've been seeing it on the c3600 as well.
I haven't tried 64-bit kernels.
And downgrading iplboot to 1.3 also solves it for me too.

New palo in CVS or a deb for testing/unstable at
http://parisc-linux.org/~bame/palo/palo_1.4heisen_hppa.deb

I'll upload to Debian when someone besides me sees success.