kernel bug

[Jarod Wilson]

I'm assuming your reply to me was meant for the list, so re-adding the
list to the cc...

On Thu, 2008-02-21 at 11:26 -0500, amc wrote:
> problem is how do I capture the stack output when the kernel has crashed ? 
> there seems to be no log entry of kernel crashes. like I said the kernel 
> crashes before it loads any other process.

Set up serial console output if you've got a serial port on your laptop,
or set up kdump to capture a vmcore. Sounds like your laptop is probably
sufficiently new enough that it has no serial port. Worst-case, get your
framebuffer output resolution as high as possible and take a picture. We
actually get a fair number of stack traces from users that way in the
Red Hat bugzilla. :)



> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jarod Wilson" <jarod at wilsonet.com>
> To: "Greater NH Linux User Group" <gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org>
> Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:19 AM
> Subject: Re: kernel bug
> 
> 
> > On Thu, 2008-02-21 at 10:46 -0500, Ben Scott wrote:
> >> On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:23 AM, amc <acrossonlnx at comcast.net> wrote:
> >> > I have been getting a strange kernel bug on my laptop from time to
> >> time.
> > [...]
> >> > the bug says unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual
> >> > address 80370665 and gave me a lot of call trace info and stack info.
> >> > this problem only happens when I boot my laptop.
> >>
> >>   What was is doing right before it crashed?  That is to say, what
> >> part of the boot process was it in?
> >
> > The actual stack trace would also be exceedingly useful in helping
> > figure out exactly what went wrong... They aren't printed out for no
> > reason. :)
> >
> >
> >> On Thu, Feb 21, 2008 at 10:32 AM, amc <acrossonlnx at comcast.net> wrote:
> >> > I did noticed that some of the kernel crashed message had something 
> >> > about
> >> > ndiswrapper which I am using at the time due to how badly Broadcom 
> >> > works on
> >> > my laptop.
> >>
> >>   ndiswrapper is not the most stable thing in the world.  On some
> >> hardware, it frequently causes kernel crashes.
> >
> > A bit more background on that: ndiswrapper absolutely slaughters kernel
> > stack space. For this very reason, the linuxant folks provide kernels
> > built with 16k stacks, which is double the upstream kernel default, and
> > quadruple what Red Hat/Fedora use.
> >
> >
> >> One thing you can do
> >> is make sure you have the latest version of ndiswrapper installed, and
> >> then try different versions of the Windows network card driver you're
> >> trying to load.
> >>
> >>   Is this wireless or Ethernet?  Do you know what particular Broadcom
> >> network controller your laptop has?
> >



-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod at wilsonet.com