Amithlon Setup Guide

[milanca]

Hi guys, bad news, my compiled 2.4 kernel (with 2.4.35.3 diff) panics. Kernel patching was smooth and compiling was successful but it panics on booting. I tested it in Vmware Fusion on Mac , got the files (smallird.gz i asked before in Charlie's guide) , totally forgot about them on the first page. I am not sure if this amithlon patch is ok or complete. Tested also with kern310 which goes much further loading then mine, my panics immediately (not good at all). Maybe it could be good to test it one more time on real amithlon machine just to make sure. At least build environment is setup and ready for patching and compiling (CentOS 3.9 server under vmware). I will transfer it and upload it in a few, just to fix something on my ubuntu server.

[KillaByte]

The patchset I posted was created by diffing the latest official Amithlon kernel sources against the matching vanilla kernel and breaking it up into several files since there was not only Amithlon stuff in there but also ReiserFS and ALSA patches.

The patch on aminet seems to be derived from the same kernel but adapted to more recent 2.4 versions.

[milanca]

Thanks killabyte. So the set of patches you posted is the latest stuff we can get or is it the patch from aminet?

If anyone wants to test it on real amithlon box here is the link (i dont trust very much in it, patching fine, compiling fine - but doesn't look very much promising when tested in vmware)

http://www..com/?zxymlxyozjm

[arti]

OK, so I tried and it load but then black screen.
I could see the harddrive is working like system was loading and reset buttons works.
So here it doesn't work.

[alpyre]

On my Amithlon system (P4T533C / Intel P4 2.4Ghz / 1024MB RD Ram / nVidia TI4200 128MB / SBlive! 5.1 / LifeviewII / RTL 8139):
It loads... but then black screen with NumLock&ScrollLock blinking continuously.... Looks like a memory error...

[KillaByte]

@Milanca:
Well - there were no later official Kernels than the ones from Bernie. The Aminet patch should contain basically the same changes but it's adapted to apply to later kernel versions. To get my patches to apply against a current 2.4 version, some work would be required.

[milanca]

Hi guys!

First of all, Happy New Year to all of you! Good news, new kernel is on its way, it's still 2.4 (2.4.35.3) but it's much newer than '310' and that's a stable kernel with general kernel improvements. I might port all of these to the latest 2.4 kernel which is 2.4.37.7 with much more supported hardware, pci-e, sata drives, but we'll see. This one exhausted me pretty much. So far, two days after finishing it, it is working flawlessly on my amithlon mini-itx box. Yes, he he, i rushed to inform you that it's finally done.

Short story
Developing under vmware didn't look very much promising to me. Compiling is fine but testing and especially debugging can't be done in vmware. Due to lack of space (and my wife's alergy, not to say histery :-) to see one more comp. case in the condo) I've got a small VIA Epia mini-itx board with C3 1ghz processor; with power supply and mini-itx case it's like an average dictionary book. After my last post and getting deeper into amithlon kernel stuff, it has taken me nearly a month to finalize it.

Kernel
Firstly, amithlon's diff 2.4.35.3 from aminet i started with is incomplete. Not just that, it is wrong. It does contain pretty much of the amithlon's code but the most important and the amithlon's most crucial things are wrong. It could have been much better that i started with the latest 2.4 kernel at the first place. After first fails, many of them, i recompiled original 2.4.12-ac1 and also latest actual 2.4.19-pre4 with all the patches. Everything was fine there, so i had to manually patch my kernel, lots of hard work trust me, and to change a couple of things to make it work.

What's included
All the patches from 2.4.19-pre4 will be included in 2.4.35.3. Many of them already are and the only thing is that i disabled lots of unnecessary stuff for my hardware for faster compiling, my kernel is ~600kb. I will recompile it again in full and add the rest so it will be all done in the next couple of days. In B.Mayer's pre4 kernel, he patched the code to support many of the newer hardware, graphic cards like geforce3, etc. In Gary's 310 kernel we have support for fx5200,5600.. VIA Sata, Velocity ethernet,GF3,4 etc. He published that as a patch against the same kernel so we have all of that, i included all of that in my kernel. I wanted to ask if there is anything that we don't have and can be included? All the new hardware supported in kernel310 Gary provided as a patch so i think that we already have everything that was previously done on this kernel.

I added support for VIA CLE266, CastleRock graphic card, for my board. My small contribution. I will provide all the compiled drivers (modules) for the sound, network, etc. If anyone wants to help, to pack things up, maybe create a short readme file for new drivers it will be greatly appreciated. As I said I will upload the new kernel (for testing first) in a couple of days, just to polish it first.

I need something to grab screenshots, silly me;-) What's usually used for that, can somebody hook me up?

Regards guys and best wishes in new 2010!
-milanca

[Dic_Ray]

Oh, great! After over 3 years, something really new for Amithlon.

Now I have a laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo 2,8 GHz, NVidia MCP79 AHCI chipset, NVidia Geforce 9600M GT graphics card, Intel High Definition Audio with Realtek HD Audio ALC 885, Broadcom BCM43xx W-Lan and Broadcom Bluetooth.

Do you see a chance to build into kernel support for this about a year old hardware configuration?

best wishes
Dic

[gulliver]

@Milanca
Get Sgrab from Aminet to grab screenshots.
Thank you for your work!

[milanca]

Hi guys,

Thanks. Uhh sata drives, yet to come, we'll see. If we can make it work it'll be more probably when in native ide mode rather than ahci.

Kernel
Here is the kernel for testing on working amithlon machines. I'm working tomorrow so I compiled it today so we can start testing it. I'd like to know if everything is fine, chipset controllers, general experience and graphic support. Much more hardware is supported with this kernel. You can also try to load any of the previous drivers (provided as modules for kernel310) to see if they work until i upload all of them (after this initial testing). So, sound and network might not work but let's see first about controllers and graphics. Please post your experience. Thank you guys!

*** UPDATE Feb.19.2010

New kernel for testing. Patched a bit to 2.4.37.9. No GFX drivers for hw acceleration at the moment. Just for testing the functionality. Should boot both single and dual/quad cores. Mem. limit 1GB, you can try with 2 to test it. I will include the rest of drivers after the test phase is done (or even sooner).

amithlon kernel 4
http://www..com/?id44lidyjyh

amithlon kernel 4 with SATA drives support
http://www..com/?2ittzvyjtej

*** update. Unfortunately bigird doesn't work and there will be no support for it. Only for HDD installed OS3.9.

[xc8]

moarrrrr

chris

[tero]

now that are good news,
thx milanca

will test tomorrow...

[Charlie]

@Milanca:

Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful!

I honestly never though I'd see the day - well done, I can't wait to give it a road-test, must try and find some time V. SOON.

You've got this up on a VIA mini-ITX board? Now where did I put that Zonbu..?

Hmm,
I've been very busy the last few months, barely been on the EAB at all - sorry if there's been any questions pointed @ me that I've missed...
...thanks for PM'ing me about this Milanca.

[Methanoid]

@Milanca

First, and most importantly, THANK YOU. It's such a nice present to the community and we are all very grateful for your time and effort!

One question, will this finally allow Amithlon to BOOT on machines with more than 1Gb (or 2Gb in some cases) physically in the machine? I;ve had to remove memory from machines (even with MEM=512M) just to get Amithlon to boot. Proper memory support is what I want from any kernel!

I have supported hardware otherwise but a new kernel is always welcome.

[milanca]

Hi guys,

Thank you guys for your support. It was a hard work, really. So many changes and uncounted number of compilings, probably ~100. I really appreciate your support. Give me first confirmations please :-) I'm eager to know if this puppy is working fine or not. I still consider it as a beta, main things should work fine. I will move forward after all doubts are gone.

@Charlie,

Yes, developed, compiled and beta tested on Via mini-itx, epia CL10000, light speed of 1ghz :-) and 512mb ram. Yeah, Zonbu was (is) great. I used it for some time on my everex laptop where amithlon was running great, intel dualcore and on sata drive but only vesa mode. If i was that experienced back then i could have easily patched the kernel to support the graphics. Ehh, knowledge, always to regret:-)

@Methanoid,

To be honest, i haven't even tried highmem support. I wanted to test the functionality first, to see if it works as the previous kernels with all the same settings. Memory allocating is a bit different so i had to slightly change and adopt it to make it work first. Absolutely i will try enabling it. Now it's still for <1gb.

I suppose, at least the few of us with working amithlon boxes, have it running on ide drives. So please test it only on ide, not sata drives.

***
UPDATE:
Not good at all, Alpyre reported it not working on his box. I'm so much worried now cause it works for me.. Will you please guys test it also with initial ramdisk, bigird.gz, besides installed OS3.9 on hdd with smallird.gz. Could be memory allocating problem or chipset controller, so try first loading it into ram.

kernel /boot/kernel4 console_level=4 init=/linuxrc root=/dev/ram0 mem=256M vga=769 ramdisk_size=12010 leavepages=8200 cachesize=65536 
initrd /boot/bigird.gz

Just place the kernel in your folder and you can change the existing line (if you didn't add new entry) on the fly, hitting "E" on the line you wish to edit in grub loader, and after editing hit "B" to boot.

[amiga]

@Milanca:

Also post your kernel link to the yahoo group http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/amithlonopen/ for more people that may help in testing it.

[KillaByte]

Cool that you did it

I was too lazy after the creation of the diffs took me the better part of a weekend

Once your kernel is nearing a stabilized state could you please also make a patchset available instead of binaries? The last time someone modded Amithlon kernels and only provided binaries it didn't end so well

Did you also include the ReiserFS and ALSA parts that were included in Bernie's kernels? If not did you notice any adverse effects? I wasn't sure if they were needed.

[Ratte]

Originally Posted by milanca

UPDATE:
Not good at all, Alpyre reported it not working on his box. I'm so much worried now cause it works for me.. Will you please guys test it also with initial ramdisk, bigird.gz, besides installed OS3.9 on hdd with smallird.gz. Could be memory allocating problem or chipset controller, so try first loading it into ram.

kernel /boot/kernel4 console_level=4 init=/linuxrc root=/dev/ram0 mem=256M vga=769 ramdisk_size=12010 leavepages=8200 cachesize=65536 
initrd /boot/bigird.gz

Just place the kernel in your folder and you can change the existing line (if you didn't add new entry) on the fly, hitting "E" on the line you wish to edit in grub loader, and after editing hit "B" to boot.

Hi milanca,

thanx for the new kernel.
I think you included the incomplete v3.x - sources from a1k.org (might be wrong).
Have you updated the included gfx-drivers?
In the past I had problem with V3.x in combination with a GeforceFX and Flatpanel, because the DVI-output hasnt be scaled to fill the complete display (analog vga worked fine).
Other thing i noticed, the radeonframebuffer isnt included. My Radeon9800pro is only working in vesa-mode, if you (re)include the radeonfb, take care about the blitting/line and mousepointer bug from kernel 3.10.
(Might be a problem of the older radeonfb)

And please provide us with working sources, here are some people on a1k.org trying to work on the kernel.

br
Andre

[milanca]

Hi,

Killabyte,
I think ReiserFS is not but ALSA part is very much required.

Ratte,

Yes, you're right, i didn't include all the gfx patches if that's what you mean, simply because to test it out, at least in vesa mode.

What do you mean by incomplete v3.x - sources please? Do you think of gfx patches, like radeon framebuffer? If that's the case i do have them, just not included, still everything is under heavy testing.

Tell me please, you tried to boot with it and you're in vesa mode, with your radeon9800. If so, that's ok, radeon patches are not included yet. If only you confirmed that earlier. I don't have very much amithlon capable box other than via-mini-itx , which is semi-capable. Alper confirmed his problems with booting and random KP and after that i have heavily changed the sources and even ruined it. I am trying to get it back to the previous state (always make patches against vanilla sources, always, i regret now).

If you did boot it tell me your system specs please, processor, ram and if its crt of tft panel.

Kind regards,
-milanca

[Ratte]

Originally Posted by milanca

Ratte,

Yes, you're right, i didn't include all the gfx patches if that's what you mean, simply because to test it out, at least in vesa mode.

What do you mean by incomplete v3.x - sources please? Do you think of gfx patches, like radeon framebuffer? If that's the case i do have them, just not included, still everything is under heavy testing.

Tell me please, you tried to boot with it and you're in vesa mode, with your radeon9800. If so, that's ok, radeon patches are not included yet. If only you confirmed that earlier. I don't have very much amithlon capable box other than via-mini-itx , which is semi-capable. Alper confirmed his problems with booting and random KP and after that i have heavily changed the sources and even ruined it. I am trying to get it back to the previous state (always make patches against vanilla sources, always, i regret now).

If you did boot it tell me your system specs please, processor, ram and if its crt of tft panel.

Kind regards,
-milanca

Hi milanca,

my hardware (using a 19" TFT flatpanel with DVI)
http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?p=102549
;-)

and this is the incomplete 3.10-source (missing radeonfb)
http://www.a1k.org/forum/showthread.php?t=12250

My system is starting with kernel4.0 but i can only use the screenmode from the linux-commandline (like vga=769).
Only in 8Bit and dammslow ....

BR Andre