From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Mar 30 15:29:43 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A886D106564A for ; Sun, 30 Mar 2008 15:29:43 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dwilde1@gmail.com) Received: from wx-out-0506.google.com (wx-out-0506.google.com [66.249.82.235]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 60ACF8FC26 for ; Sun, 30 Mar 2008 15:29:43 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dwilde1@gmail.com) Received: by wx-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id i29so1163421wxd.7 for ; Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:29:41 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; bh=Nf8q0gW66m5G9scH+iNmay02GwPLlsUwl4z+Ph8VHIk=; b=NrU8qU6zXaO39pLC5VrPxjWCU2qde9TlCXdVlzELjLnQtT1BqGUs19GtD+cRLJNbEz0SQ2ROxLmcWqjaBZrYnsJ9XzhDIghl7JdSYlKHJbPYXMhWGChkLN3Xm0TN1fwxsRWfnc0HdpTk3IEoWBLt8QXE5IHeJYPwHBzBGyMhIxw= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=message-id:date:from:reply-to:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; b=fDM8VQH2qZECcOuY+ttBF3/HLWv8Ah0D+LwcH9tEBJSy3Csc/dtgK7yB4a4MLqtRKpUrMuyjFP7neAiN/TLHHNbraRPQ+9BRUFlHXKtVvh/pH3CBXqqYuOJk5PJ4I58+KMmsjkex3sZyUveQfSACVpF0x8D16mbri50OmZiQmY8= Received: by 10.115.49.16 with SMTP id b16mr8044225wak.65.1206890980756; Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:29:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.114.152.6 with HTTP; Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:29:40 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2008 10:29:40 -0500 From: "Don Wilde" To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: <200803290917.10348.joao@matik.com.br> MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <200803290917.10348.joao@matik.com.br> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: Re: a fun project X-BeenThere: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: dwilde1@gmail.com List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the AMD64 platform List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2008 15:29:43 -0000 On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 7:17 AM, JoaoBR wrote: > On Saturday 29 March 2008 06:05:49 Don Wilde wrote: > > FreeBSD working on such bleeding edge hardware leads to more high-end > sales > > for Dell and more FreeBSD in High Places. Win - Win! > > > what a generous offer! > :) > > -- > > Jo=E3o > > Okay, now it's time for help lifting the cart out of the mudhole! :) Mixed results on the first pass. The blade is mostly ACPI driven, with lots of PCI bridges and PCIexpress mezzanine card slots. Probing found the mpt0 LSILogic SAS6 controller, so I should be able to at least load the hard disk. I was able to boot the distro kernel of amd64-7.0-R from a USB CDROM, but it hung up three quarters of the way through the probe process. It hung after the last PCI probe, and before the first SIO probe. The 'verbose logging' bootup didn't give me any more clues; it identified the 34th (!) PCI bus port more completely, but it didn't give any more clues to what hun= g it up. I was able to get the i386 ISO to complete the probe and move on to the FreeBSD sysinstall menu, but wasn't able to complete the install due to the fact that there are no ATAPI CDROM ports on the blade and it couldn't use the USB CD as a source. Any ideas as to why the amd64 probe hung and the i386 did not? My i386 ISO set is actually 7.0-RC3, not 7.0-RELEASE, would that matter? I have two ways to proceed in loading the system from the i386 set. Our blades have what we call vMedia, which allows us to virtualize a CDROM or floppy drive and attach it through our iDRAC blade management processor. We've got a few bugs left in that part of this new blade's firmware, so tha= t may not be successful although it would be the easiest way to succeed if it would work. The other way to proceed is with a local ftp server. Our lab networks (and corporate, for that matter) are heavily blockaded by Doze-oriented sysadmins, and we have very little outside access capability. What I think = I can do, however, is to preload my trusty little Inspiron laptop as a partia= l clone of ftp.freebsd.org, and attach it to the local net segment when I go in tomorrow. That way, I think I can at least get the system loaded with a running i386 setup so that I can capture probe dmesgs and run some test scripts. I feel good about what I saw today. I'm thinking that it can and will be made to work successfully, because Dell's hardware is very much standards-driven and should be straightforward even if it is all bleeding edge for the PC world. Comments or suggestions? I suppose I could d/l an i386 live CD and boot tha= t as an intermediate step. At least with that I could get quickly to a prompt and mount a USB key to store off dmesg and stuff like that that I can't capture with the incomplete install boot. -- :D