Hello!

I have installed open bsd 3.5 on an old compaq prolinea 4/50 (486 8
MB) RAM.
At the first after installation boot the sequence stops with

rootdev=0x1100 rrootdev=0x2f00 rawdev=0x2f02.

If I get it right this is the stage where it tries to mount the root
filesystem.
Does the above message mean that it succesfully mounted root and faild
shortly afterwards?

I tried various kernels and all the ramdisk ones worked wheres all
normal ones failed. I also tried disabling devices at random and
played around with the UKC a lot. Really dont know where to look
for...

I can provide a dmesg.

Ludwig Weinzierl

l.weinzierl@case-m.de (Ludwig Weinzierl) wrote in message news:<1f1fc85a.0408160239.10d26f7f@posting.google. com>...

> I have installed open bsd 3.5 on an old compaq prolinea 4/50 (486 8
> MB) RAM.
> At the first after installation boot the sequence stops with
>
> rootdev=0x1100 rrootdev=0x2f00 rawdev=0x2f02.
>
> If I get it right this is the stage where it tries to mount the root
> filesystem.
> Does the above message mean that it succesfully mounted root and faild
> shortly afterwards?
>
> I tried various kernels and all the ramdisk ones worked wheres all
> normal ones failed. I also tried disabling devices at random and
> played around with the UKC a lot. Really dont know where to look
> for...

i was thinking your system was running out of memory, but since you
can boot a ramdisk system (bsd.rd), it may be that your disks aren't
formatted properly or not available for use. however, that "rootdev=
...." line from dmesg suggests it found the root device, typically
wd0a.

have you reviewed the FAQ and made sure it's none of the commonly seen
problems:

http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#noboot

hope this helps,

--------
jose nazario
co-author, "Secure Architectures with OpenBSD"

l.weinzierl@case-m.de (Ludwig Weinzierl) wrote in message news:<1f1fc85a.0408160239.10d26f7f@posting.google. com>...

> I have installed open bsd 3.5 on an old compaq prolinea 4/50 (486 8
> MB) RAM.
> At the first after installation boot the sequence stops with
>
> rootdev=0x1100 rrootdev=0x2f00 rawdev=0x2f02.
>
> If I get it right this is the stage where it tries to mount the root
> filesystem.
> Does the above message mean that it succesfully mounted root and faild
> shortly afterwards?
>
> I tried various kernels and all the ramdisk ones worked wheres all
> normal ones failed. I also tried disabling devices at random and
> played around with the UKC a lot. Really dont know where to look
> for...

i was thinking your system was running out of memory, but since you
can boot a ramdisk system (bsd.rd), it may be that your disks aren't
formatted properly or not available for use. however, that "rootdev=
...." line from dmesg suggests it found the root device, typically
wd0a.

have you reviewed the FAQ and made sure it's none of the commonly seen
problems:

http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#noboot

hope this helps,

--------
jose nazario
co-author, "Secure Architectures with OpenBSD"

> i was thinking your system was running out of memory, but since you
> can boot a ramdisk system (bsd.rd), it may be that your disks aren't
> formatted properly or not available for use. however, that "rootdev=
> ..." line from dmesg suggests it found the root device, typically
> wd0a.

Yeah, I was thinking this too at first, 8 MB is not a hell of a lot.
I forgot to mention: When booting the ramdisk kernel I can mount my
rootdevice.

> have you reviewed the FAQ and made sure it's none of the commonly seen
> problems:
>
> http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#noboot

Yes I have. All the problems mentioned are concerned with the early
boot stages (except the ssh-keygen steps, which came later as I
assume).
As far as I understand, what happens is not a problem of booting the
kernel. When the rootdisk message appears the kernel has already been
loaded into memory and started.
In fact at least with the ramdisk kernel the rootdev message is the
last message form the kernel itself, the next one is from the
installer.
The 1 billion altairian dollar question is:
What happens after rootdev and before login?

I have put the dmesg output to
http://earth.prohosting.com/weinzier/public/dmesg.txt


Ludwig Weinzierl

Ludwig Weinzierl wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I have installed open bsd 3.5 on an old compaq prolinea 4/50 (486 8
> MB) RAM.
> At the first after installation boot the sequence stops with
>
> rootdev=0x1100 rrootdev=0x2f00 rawdev=0x2f02.
>
> If I get it right this is the stage where it tries to mount the root
> filesystem.
> Does the above message mean that it succesfully mounted root and faild
> shortly afterwards?
>
> I tried various kernels and all the ramdisk ones worked wheres all
> normal ones failed. I also tried disabling devices at random and
> played around with the UKC a lot. Really dont know where to look
> for...
>
> I can provide a dmesg.
>
> Ludwig Weinzierl

Do you have any possibility to add memory?
The last time i booted OpenBSD with less than 16MB memory
was around kernel 2.6 ...
I know that OpenBSD 3.5 WILL install and work on a 486 with 20MB
memory.
Remember:
More memory will increase spead much better that a faster CPU
until you have at least 32MB memory. It will depend on the use
and applications after that.

Good Luck!
Rudy

> Do you have any possibility to add memory?

Difficult - and buying such memory is not worth the effort.

> The last time i booted OpenBSD with less than 16MB memory
> was around kernel 2.6 ...
> I know that OpenBSD 3.5 WILL install and work on a 486 with 20MB
> memory.

The ramdisk kernels work.
What is different with them?

Ludwig Weinzierl

Ludwig Weinzierl wrote:
>>Do you have any possibility to add memory?
>
>
> Difficult - and buying such memory is not worth the effort.
>
>
>>The last time i booted OpenBSD with less than 16MB memory
>>was around kernel 2.6 ...
>>I know that OpenBSD 3.5 WILL install and work on a 486 with 20MB
>>memory.
>
>
> The ramdisk kernels work.
> What is different with them?
>
> Ludwig Weinzierl

From the file "OpenBSD/3.5/i386/INSTALL.i386":

> OpenBSD System Requirements and Supported Devices:
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> OpenBSD/i386 3.5 works across a broad range of standard PCs and
> clones, with a wide variety of processors and I/O bus architectures. It
> can be expected to install and run with minimal difficulties on most
> current products. The cases where problems may be encountered are
> typically older proprietary PCs, laptops, or specialized server boxes
> that rely on a custom BIOS to paper over implementation differences.
>
> OpenBSD does not currently support multiple processors (SMP), but will
> run using one processor on a multi-processor system board.
>
> The minimal configuration to install the system is 12MB or 16MB of RAM and
> perhaps 100MB of disk space. A custom kernel might be able to run with only
> 8MB. To install the entire system requires much more disk space, and to run
> X or compile the system, more RAM is recommended. (16MB of RAM will actually
> allow you to run X and/or compile but it won't be speedy. Note that until
> you have around 32MB of RAM, getting more RAM is more important than getting
> a faster CPU.)
>

The "install-kernel" has not all drivers in it, and is therefore
smaller (needs less memory). But the "normal" kernel has all the
wistle and bells inside and needs more memory.

Have a look a your local thrift store (Brockenhaus) for "old"
computer which could have the correct type of memory in it. Cheaper
than ordering 72 pin SIMMs at the computer store. :-)

Rudy

> Have a look a your local thrift store (Brockenhaus) for "old"
> computer which could have the correct type of memory in it. Cheaper
> than ordering 72 pin SIMMs at the computer store. :-)

I have found two 4 MB modules in my toolbox. With 16 MB it works
great, but 12 MB were enough to boot at least.

Thanks a lot...

> Have a look a your local thrift store (Brockenhaus) for "old"
> computer which could have the correct type of memory in it. Cheaper
> than ordering 72 pin SIMMs at the computer store. :-)

I had a look in my cellars, and - Voilà, actually found two 8 MB modules.
With 16 MB the system works fine now.

It was in fact a memory problem.

Thanks a lot...