[arch-general] kernel26-2.6.34.1 - won't boot - stuck at "Setting up UTF-8 mode" or craters with kernel NULL pointer

[Mauro Santos]

On 07/13/2010 04:24 PM, David C. Rankin wrote:

> Could the Null Pointer blow up be due to incorrect gpu handling by the
> Arch kernel causing the blow-up when the modules are loaded (about the
> same time the KMS magic is taking place?
> 
> I say this because I have one of ATI's less common gpu's in this Toshiba
> laptop. The video card is:
> 
> Radeon X1250 Graphics(690G Chipset), RS690M, RV410 Graphics Core. This
> uses the onboard PCIe bus interface and has API support for DirectX 9.0b
> and OpenGL 2.0. For some reason the kernel crashes 'smell' like a
> mishandling of the gpu subsystem in the 2.6.34 kernels (Note: this is
> just a 'gut feel', and I can't point to anything in particular). Of all
> things that could have changed for the past 2 kernels, the KMS magic and
> a possible bug slipping in for this card seems like one of the likely
> areas to start looking.

That could be it, try to disable KMS or use early KMS. I see this happen
once in a while when I boot my desktop pc from a usb drive with arch.

Most of the times it boots just fine but every once in a while it will
hang at that exact place, "Setting console font ...." but I've never
seen a kernel panic or had to clean spaghetti of my screen.

I could never figure out exactly what was wrong, starting with a cold
boot sometimes it hangs, most of the times it works.

-- 
Mauro Santos