Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 176969
Module [sis190] hangs the system if there is no working network attached to it
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:11:20 EST
From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051201 Fedora/1.5-1.1.fc4.nr Firefox/1.5 Description of problem: If there is no network or a network failure during boot time, specific on network setup stage, the system hangs completely. An easy way to reproduce it is to not plug any network cable at all and wait it to try to boot and hang. It hapens with static IP, and specified Gateway, and dynamic IP, DHCP. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): kernel-2.6.14-1.1653_FC4 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Use a SiS 190/191 network adapter; 2. Let network service enable at boot time; 3. Do not connect any cable or, in my case, turn off your DSL modem; 4. Wait it to starts up. Actual Results: The system hangs completely. Expected Results: It could say that there is no network service avaiable but let the system going on with the rest of it. Additional info: I tryed the branch netdev on it, the [kernel-smp-2.6.14-1.1653_FC4.netdev.6] from [http://people.redhat.com/linville/kernels/fedora-netdev/], but it does not work. I got the original [sis190] module from SiS and it works just perfect. To get the file got to: http://www.sis.com/download/ and follow this: 1. Network Driver -> SiS190 Gigabit & SiS191 LAN -> Linux -> GO; 2. Than proceed to the download of "SiS190 / SiS191 Gigabit LAN / LAN driver for Linux kernal 2.6.9 or later."; 3. Extract the file [sis190191_linux.tar.gz]; 4. Override the original [sis190.c] with the one from [sis190_20041220/sis190.c].
Hmmmm...well, it sure would be nice if SiS would use the public sis190 driver instead of having their own completely different driver by the same name... :-( This may take a while to ferret-out the relevant differences...I'll see what I can do.
Sent email to Chung-Hsien Chang <changch@sis.com> asking for whatever help he might provide with this issue.
...and the email bounced...grrr...
Have I got an Email bounced or Mr. Chung-Hsien Chang?
I have tryed the new kernel, but the driver for [sis190] in the kernel-2.6.14-1.1656_FC4 is the same as in kernel-2.6.14-1.1653_FC4, and the problem is still valid.
Created attachment 122924 [details] Proposed patch to [sis190.c] Just a [diff -Nup] between the original kernel driver and SiS driver.
(Chang's email bounced...) As you can tell from the diff, the two drivers basically only share the same name. They don't appear to be related at all. If they were more similar, it might be easy to pick-out a few changes from the diff. As it is, it will take someone with better knowledge of the drivers and/or hardware, or at least more research.
Gustavo, I have a question, and something for you to try. My question is: what happens if you boot to single user mode, and load the stock module (from kernel-2.6.14-1.1653_FC4) by hand (i.e. running modprobe sis190)? Does the system still hang? If not, what actually happens? Also, when trying this experiment, try to pass the command line argument debug=16 when you probe it; that will give more debugging information. Thanks, Chris
Christopher, I have done what you asked but now it is working and I do not know why. I tryed to figure it out, why now it works, but I could not. What I can say about the problem is that it was never about loading the driver but trying to bring it up. What you instructed me I had done before I issue this bug (but without the parameter debug=16) and everything went good until I tryed to bring the interface up (by using "ifup" and "ifconfig") then it hangs. But now it is ok and I'm sorry that I can no longer reproduce the problem. Thanks anyway.
This is a mass-update to all currently open kernel bugs. A new kernel update has been released (Version: 2.6.15-1.1830_FC4) based upon a new upstream kernel release. Please retest against this new kernel, as a large number of patches go into each upstream release, possibly including changes that may address this problem. This bug has been placed in NEEDINFO_REPORTER state. Due to the large volume of inactive bugs in bugzilla, if this bug is still in this state in two weeks time, it will be closed. Should this bug still be relevant after this period, the reporter can reopen the bug at any time. Any other users on the Cc: list of this bug can request that the bug be reopened by adding a comment to the bug. If this bug is a problem preventing you from installing the release this version is filed against, please see bug 169613. Thank you.
The problem was resolved by the new kernel: 2.6.15-1.1830_FC4.