Folks,

A couple of interesting things to note:

(1)  I can boot the 2.6.9-22 kernel just fine.  It is just the 
2.6.9-22.smp kernel that has problems.

(2)  When booting the 2.6.9-22.smp kernel, the system starts up, and I 
can ping the system UNTIL it leaves the graphical boot screen to go back 
to the console to start gdm for logins.  Then the gdm screen is blank, 
there is a flashing cursor up in the uppper-left-hand corner, and the 
system immediately stops responding to pings and the keyboard/mouse are 
locked.  The caps/num/scrolllock lights turn blank, and pressing the 
numlock/capslock/scrolllock have no effect on their respective lights on 
the keyboard.

(3)  If I enter the bios of these systems, and turn off the Exec Disable 
memory protection, the system does boot up normally on the 2.6.9-22.smp 
kernel, but does take a good deal of time to start the IIMF input server.

So at least for now it appears the workaround is to either run the non 
smp kernel, or turn off the exec disable memory protection in the bios.

I know this new kernel did fix security problems with memory access on 
multiple architectures.  It is possible the developers did not account 
for the exec disable option in the bios.  Is this a 'bad' thing to have 
turned on anyhow?

Gregory Harris wrote:
> Nope, just plain OptiPlex GX280's.  Integrated graphics cards,  
> integrated NICs, integrated sound.  All of them have the DVI  conversion 
> adapter installed on them though, which the flat panels  use but the 
> CRTs don't.  It seems to take forever to boot, but the  network adapter 
> does get brought up but I can' t ping the systems  remotely.
> 
> On Oct 10, 2005, at 5:19 PM, Connie Sieh wrote:
> 
>> Gregory,
>>
>> Any "special" hardware on this Dell?
>>
>> -Connie Sieh
>>
>> On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Gregory Harris
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Yeah, I felt dumb after I wrote that because I forgot about grub.
>>> Anyhow, it's a rather interesting problem that a kernel update would
>>> cause this much havoc.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Greg
>>>
>>> On Oct 10, 2005, at 4:51 PM, Connie Sieh wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Gregory,
>>>>
>>>> Grub should give you the option to boot the older kernel.
>>>>
>>>> -Connie Sieh
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, 10 Oct
>>>> 2005, Gregory Harris wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Anybody else having serious problems with the 2.6.9-22 kernel that
>>>>> just came out for SL4?
>>>>>
>>>>> I have yum set to autoupdate.  I have just found out that all of  the
>>>>> 30 or so Dell Optiplex GX280's we have that have  been rebooted are
>>>>> all hanging on boot.  There doesn't seem to be anyway to get to a
>>>>> root console on them either, it doesn't bring up networking and  hangs
>>>>> on the "setting up swap space" or it goes to a blank screen.
>>>>>
>>>>> At this point I don't see anyway to revert to the previous state
>>>>> other than reinstalling.  It's not a big deal here though since we
>>>>> use network home directories.  Just want to get the word out before
>>>>> it bites someone else.

-- 

Gregory Harris
Network Specialist
Department of Mathematics
The University of Kansas
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(785) 864-7311