ubuntu kernel unable to boot on 486sx

Bug #297940 reported by David Wilson
4
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
installation-guide (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned
linux (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

System: Norhtec MicroClient JrSX with 366MHz 486sx SoC and 128MB RAM

1) Ubuntu 8.04.1 and 8.10 Live CD-ROMs
2) ?
3) Expected kernel to boot and Ubuntu to start installation (as system has insufficient RAM to run live).
4) What happened.
8.04.1:
This kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU:
0:0
Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU.

8.10 replaces "0:0" with "fpu"

According to https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/installation-guide/i386/hardware-supported.html "All i486 and later processors are still supported[3]." In addition, the F6 help screen of the 8.04.1 CD has the following text "Workaround faulty FPU (old machines) no387" which would seem to imply that an FPU is optional.

Is this a documentation bug (should read "486DX and later") or should a kernel with FPU emulation be available?

Matthew East (mdke)
affects: ubuntu-docs (Ubuntu) → installation-guide (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
kernel-janitor (kernel-janitor) wrote :

Hi David,

This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/karmic .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 297940

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

tags: added: needs-kernel-logs
tags: added: needs-upstream-testing
tags: added: kj-triage
Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
David Wilson (mcs6502) wrote :

I just downloaded the Karmic-Alpha5 x86 Server CD image. Booting it on my Vortex86sx equipped computer gives the same result as previous releases of Ubuntu:

This kernel requires the following features not present on the CPU:
fpu
Unable to boot - please use a kernel appropriate for your CPU.

Looking at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/Specs/KarmicKernelFlavours it appears that dropping support for 486 and 586 processors is being considered so I think it very unlikely that support for the 486sx will be added.

Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: Incomplete → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee) wrote :

This bug report was marked as Triaged a while ago but has not had any updated comments for quite some time. Please let us know if this issue remains in the current Ubuntu release, http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . If the issue remains, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Vish (vish) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future.
To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New".

Changed in linux (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Invalid
Changed in installation-guide (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
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