[LinuxBIOS] IDE become readonly, why?

[Peter Stuge]

On Thu, Apr 05, 2007 at 03:25:38PM -0700, Beneo wrote:
> when boot from factory BIOS, cat /proc/cmdline output this:
> ro root=LABEL=/ debug console=ttyS0,115200n8

Ok. Looks similar to what you're using in FILO.


> I removed ro from the line, it still have the same issue.

Yes, I would expect this.


> I made up the filo linux boot line by look at the grub.conf file
> in this Linux install.

Ok, good.


> I don't know, I'm not a expert on this. but the "ro" maybe means
> mount the randisk image readonly, not the root file system?

It applies to both initrd and root.


> Come back to my question, does LinuxBIOS actually setup IDE
> interface.

Yes, it does do setup.


> I know it enables IDE from Chipset level, but does it actully
> program the IDE interface, for example using port 1F0, 170 and etc.

LinuxBIOS does not access any IDE devices. FILO does however.

But I don't think IDE access is the real problem.

Try looking at the startup scripts and see what they are doing around
the point where they hang. We can only guess why the script is
hanging at this point.

The relevant script may be in the initrd you are using, or in the
root fs.

How long did you let the script "hang" before giving up on it?

Perhaps it's in fact busy working with something that takes too long
because of another problem in LinuxBIOS. If we know what the script
is doing we can make better guesses about why it is hanging.

You could also try to skip using the initrd, but I don't know/like
Red Hat so I don't know if it is in fact required to boot the system.


//Peter