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#40 $arg{'ARCH'} by uname skips athlon

v1.00
closed-out-of-date
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7
2008-04-17
2002-08-07
Anonymous
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  • Nobody/Anonymous

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    I'm using OSCAR-1.3 to install a small cluster with Athlon
    processors. I'm using RedHat 7.3, with all updated
    packages (particularly kernel-2.4.18-5.athlon.rpm).

    PackageBest.pm uses "(uname)[4]" to set the architecture
    of the current machine (I think), which results in "i686".

    The rpm command to query the kernel package in
    Rpm.pm queries and returns an arch of "athlon".

    This causes the whole thing to fail. It may be because the
    compatibility strings in the rpmrc file only go in reverse (ie
    athlon->i686->i586->etc...), and since POSIX::uname is
    returning i686, athlon would not be in the compat string.

    I managed to fix this by hardcoding the arch as "athlon" (right
    underneath the population of %args), but that is not a _real_
    fix. I almost feel like I should be complaining to the
    POSIX::uname authors, but I found you guys first :)

    I'm still getting failures trying to get RedHat 7.3 to run with
    OSCAR, mainly because rpm is reordering the stage 2 rpmlist
    incorrectly for textutils (needs /sbin/install-info), pfilter (needs
    egrep), and the kernel (fails because it can't open the
    /etc/fstab file)...

    I believe these last problem are because it is defaulting
    back to the standard redhat version stage file (it does not find
    one for 7.3).

    Please let me know if you can help me out. I could really use
    a version stage file for RH 7.3 (or something else that will make
    this work...)

    Thanks,
    Judd Taylor
    Systems Engineer
    Institute for Marine Remote Sensing
    University of South Florida
    judd@marine.usf.edu

     
  • Michael Chase-Salerno

    • assigned_to: nobody --> mchasal
     
  • Michael Chase-Salerno

    Logged In: YES
    user_id=99742

    Not sure about the athlon architecture issue, but the new
    version of SystemInstaller,0.92, in OSCAR 1.4 should
    address your other RH7.3 install issues.

     
  • Michael Chase-Salerno

    • milestone: 172509 --> v1.00
     
  • Michael Chase-Salerno

    • priority: 5 --> 7
     
  • Michael Chase-Salerno

    Logged In: YES
    user_id=99742

    I think you are correct with the statement that this is a
    problem with the uname call. If that doesn't return the
    correct architecture, I don't know how I would know that it
    is an athlon. Does the uname -a shell command also return i686?

     
  • Nobody/Anonymous

    Logged In: NO

    Nope. The ouput is below.

    [xband@testit 2002_08_29_1648]$ uname -a
    Linux <hostname> 2.4.18-5 #1 Mon Jun 10 15:37:14 EDT 2002
    i686 unknown

    I thought maybe it could be determined by rpm query to the
    currently installed kernel, but no luck there either.

    It may require some dialog box for athlon machines until uname
    gets fixed.

    I noticed that AMD provides various utilities that may be useful for
    identification of the CPU on their web page,
    http://www.amd.com/us-
    en/Processors/DevelopWithAMD/0,,30_2252_871_2364,00.html .
    There is even some source code there.
    Maybe it's possible to use something from that site.

    -Judd

     
  • Nobody/Anonymous

    Logged In: NO

    I just realized....

    If you are making an image for a clone machine (same
    processor, etc...) you can get the CPU type, etc... from
    the /proc/cpuinfo file. Mine says:

    [xband@testit db]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
    processor : 0
    vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
    cpu family : 6
    model : 8
    model name : AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2200+
    stepping : 0
    cpu MHz : 1804.153
    cache size : 256 KB
    fdiv_bug : no
    hlt_bug : no
    f00f_bug : no
    coma_bug : no
    fpu : yes
    fpu_exception : yes
    cpuid level : 1
    wp : yes
    flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge
    mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mmxext 3dnowext
    3dnow
    bogomips : 3591.37

    This may be helpful for a workaround until the uname function
    starts recognizing athlon cpus.

    -Judd

     
  • Michael Chase-Salerno

    Logged In: YES
    user_id=99742

    So, after talking a bit, the belief is that the uname
    command won't recognize the athlon architecture unless you
    are using an athlon specific kernel. Can you verify if the
    kernel running on your machine is for an athlon or not? If
    you use the mksiimage command or tksis directly instead of
    OSCAR, you should be able to specify the arch as "athlon"
    regardless of what the server is running.

     
  • Nobody/Anonymous

    Logged In: NO

    Almost... I AM running an athlon kernel, and getting the "i686"
    uname (shell command) output.

    I verified this by testing one of the nodes I installed with my quick-
    fix modification below (the rpm command that sysimager uses the
    athlon kernel to build the image).

    -Judd

     
  • Michael Chase-Salerno

    • status: open --> closed-out-of-date
     
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