Bug report: x86_64 v11.0 can not installed on Lenovo R60

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hardware platform: Lenovo R60 laptop configured with 80GB harddisk and 2GB memory
Operating System: OpenSUSE 11.0 X86_64 version
Problem: I had installed Solaris 11 Build 97 on R60 and the isainfo -v represented that the system can support running 32 bit and 64 bit binary code. But I encountered installation errors while installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 64 bit version 5.2 and Open SUSE x86_64 version 11.0.
I regarded this was a bug of Solaris initially and asked questions in OpenSolaris forum. The answer and basic testing told me that it was not a bug with Solaris platform. Since the CPU and hardware of R60 can support 64-bit computing, why OpenSUSE 11.0 x86_64 version regarded it as non-64-bit hardware?

Here is the questiones asked in Solaris forum for your reference:
OpenSolaris Forums : 32 bit hardware platform identified as …

2

The problem may be related to buggy bios (most of them are “formatted” to suit Microsoft. I’m not sure but it’s the way OS discovers what CPU can support is from BIOS. Try updating it.

BTW have You tried running firmware test from openSUSE installation disk?

3

At first, I doubted on the BIOS and considered whether the hardware platform of Lenovo R60 is 32-bit and asked questions in Solaris forum.

Since the Solaris x86_64 can running properly with it, I will regard this as a BUG of OpenSUSE 11.0 X86_64 and RHEL 5.2 X86_64 rather than Solaris’s.

4

As i told You, better run firmware test first then consider running a bug. From what i seen solaris showed there is a “vendor” specific bios, solaris may not check this when while linux does. Try it first, anyway, if You file a bug they’ll ask You to check couple of things so they may help You find where the problem is.

I’ve searched forum and someone posted some lspci like command from Solaris?

5

Can you report this issue into Bugzilla, please?

That way this problem will go to attention of the kernel team, who’s issue it most likely is.

Your forum account is the same as the Novell account used there. there’s an explanation about bug reporting on openSUSE website, try searching first in case it’s already reported. If so you can comment that it affects you to.

6

Well Lenovo R60 has C2D, every C2D supports 64 bit extensions. But i don’t see any reason to running 64 bit system on that laptop because there are no real advantages when having 2GB RAM.

7

Well I can.

You may have application software that works with large sparse arrays and matrices.

You might like your processor to work in native mode, with more registers, and reduced i386/i486/pentium cruft.

You might have noticed all the 64 bit numbers, used all over the place when dealing with files, and in filesystems. Remember the old 2GB and 4GB file limits?

8

#1 You won’t use application like that on a laptop
#2 More registers means more overhead, this pentium cruft had to be partially left to remain compatible
#3You could even use 128bit file system on a 16 bit system if You’d like;)

9

Here is the result of Firmware Test with OpenSUSE 11.0 x86_64 installation DVD on Lenovo R60.

Linux-ready Firmware Developer Kit Release 3 -(C) 2007 Intel Corporation

Test Results: 3 Fail, 3 warn, 12 Pass, 18 Total
[FAIL] CPU frequency scaling tests(1-2 mins)
3 CPU frequency steps supported
F Supposedly higher frequency is slower on CPU 0!
F Supposedly higher frequency is slower on CPU 0!
F Supposedly higher frequency is slower on CPU 0!
F Supposedly higher frequency is slower on CPU 1!
F Processors are set to SW_ANY
F Firmware not implementing hardware coordination cleanly, Firware using SW_AL
F Firmware not implementing hardware coordination cleanly, Firware using SW_AN
[FAIL] OS/2 memory hole test
F The memory map has a memory hole between 15 Mb and 16 Mb
[FAIL] HPET configuration test
F Failed to locate HPET base
[WARN] EDD boot disk hinting
device 80: the system boot from device 0000:00:1f.2 channel:1 device:0
W device 80: No matching MBR signature(0x00000000) found for the boot disk
[WARN] Fan tests
W No Fan information present
[WARN] PCI Express MaxReadReq tuning
W MaxReadReq for device pci://00:00:1b.0 is low(128)
W MaxReadReq for device pci://00:01:00.0 is low(128)
W MaxReadReq for device pci://00:03:00.0 is low(128)
INFO DMA Remapping (VT-d) test
No DMAR ACPI table found.
…

10

Here is the result of the command lspci under KDE4 Live CD environment.

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M52 [Mobility Radeon X1300]
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5751M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 21)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
15:00.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
15:00.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCIxx12 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller

11

After that You can go and report a BUG as i can’t see any problems here (fail standard, those that fail also at my PC). They can help a bit more. They’ll make You some proper tests and find out the cause of that.

12

#1 is not true, developers often try things on laptops, and other ppl like them to.

If you had said, for general browsing and light typical usage, then I’d agree.

#2 is also not true. Those registers get used to make instruction call passing cleaner and faster. You only have to save registers and incur overhead when there’s context switches. That happens far less frequently than function calls.

#3 You could, and a 32 bit, or a 64 bit processor would handle the situation with less complicated code. With a 128 bit processor it would be trivial.

13

That i945 controller’s widely used in netbooks with Atoms, never mind laptops, so it looks like it ought to work.

Getting output from ‘hwinfo’, and that you have there is useful. Often I’ve been asked for output from “lspci -nnvvvxxx”, which shows alot of detailed register stuff of controllers. Probably more useful when you have a system running with your disks in operation and such. (you can CNTRL-ALT-F2 during an install )