Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: Pxe boot with Broadcom BCM5754 does not work

Hybrid View

  1. #1
    Junior Member registered user
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Posts
    20

    Pxe boot with Broadcom BCM5754 does not work

    I am using Knoppix 6.7.0 in a PXE boot environment. I have remastered it a little bit to remove some packages and whatnot, but it's pretty vanilla. It's been working fine for a few months now, on lots of different hardwares.

    I am having a problem with PXE booting a Dell 740 which has a Broadcom BCM5754 Gigabit card. I believe the problem is the firmware for the card, although I don't know. I can boot the machine using the Knoppix 6.7.0 CD, and it loads the NIC driver fine.

    The exact behavior is this: I do the PXE boot, and it loads the minirt.gz image. I see kernel loading lines flash through the screen very very quickly, and then the machine reboots. It appears to be rebooting at the point it's trying to execute udhcp. I can't say with certainty because it is rebooting so fast. Sometimes so fast I barely see the kernel lines show up.

    I booted to cd (also Knoppix 6.7.0) to diagnose what modules are loaded etc, and found that the tg3.ko module has 3 firmware files it loads. Those files are not in the minirt.gz packing. (but they are on the cd). So i copied the /lib/firmware folder to the minirt.gz, but it is not working. I then found a post on writing a custom hotplug script in /sbin/hotplug to load the firmware, but that does not seem to be executing, or if it is, it is not working. The article I found targeted Knoppix 5, so maybe it's not applicable anymore. (i tried to put an echo and a sleep to test, but for all i know it's in a background thread)

    While I was at it, I modified the init script to not call the restart command in the bailout() function.

    this does not stop the machine from rebooting!

    I am at a loss as to how to diagnose this. It works from CD but not PXE, which shouts NIC, but I just don't know. I've tried removing the driver altogether to see if the script will pause and complain about no network / driver etc. No joy.

    Any one have any ideas on how to approach this?

  2. #2
    Junior Member registered user
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Posts
    20
    I booted to the CD and did a lsmod to get a list of everything. Then I used modinfo to go through the list for dependencies.

    I then copied all of the .ko files to a drivers folder and renamed them to go in order. (ie, 0_ttm.ko, so that the nouveau.ko file can load).

    I repacke the initram and rebooted, and this time the screen locks up with what looks like a kernel panic screen. This makes me feel like I'm moving in the right direction, but ... well, I put all of the kernel modules that I saw in /proc/modules. So I'm stumped again.

  3. #3
    Junior Member registered user
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Posts
    20
    So i figured it out. and it makes no sense to me..

    Somehow a while ago (like 5 months) I must have made a typeo when creating my customzed initrd. (this was when I was fixing the broadcomm b44.ko driver to work)

    The root of the minirt.gz had a file called ..miniroot

    I found it by accident. Once I removed that file and re-created the pxe minirt.gz it worked fine.

    I don't understand how just this one model of machine broke, or even why it broke. but it's fixed now.

    chalk this up to PEBKAC

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  


Atari 1200XL Computer with Power Supply and BASIC - Tested 100% Working picture

Atari 1200XL Computer with Power Supply and BASIC - Tested 100% Working

$325.00



Atari 1050 5.25

Atari 1050 5.25" Floppy Disk Drive w/ CO17945 Power Adaptor - Powers On

$49.99



Atari 800XL with SubLOGIC Flight Simulator Power Supply RF cable Switch Box picture

Atari 800XL with SubLOGIC Flight Simulator Power Supply RF cable Switch Box

$350.00



Atari 130xe Computer Case (no keyboard, no motheboard) picture

Atari 130xe Computer Case (no keyboard, no motheboard)

$40.00



CATALOG/BROCHURE Atari Jaguar NEW Original picture

CATALOG/BROCHURE Atari Jaguar NEW Original

$9.99



Vintage Atari 400 Computer System w/ Atari 410 Program Recorder picture

Vintage Atari 400 Computer System w/ Atari 410 Program Recorder

$100.00



Atari 400/800/XL/XE Computer SIO2PC - PC/Mac Disk Drive Emulator Adapter/Device picture

Atari 400/800/XL/XE Computer SIO2PC - PC/Mac Disk Drive Emulator Adapter/Device

$15.25



Atari 1090XL Reproduction Main Board with two cards. picture

Atari 1090XL Reproduction Main Board with two cards.

$249.42



A8picoCart Atari 130 / 65 XE 800 / 1200 XL XEGS multicart UnoCart clone game picture

A8picoCart Atari 130 / 65 XE 800 / 1200 XL XEGS multicart UnoCart clone game

$32.95



Atari 600XL Computer Bundle TESTED WORKING With Cassette Recorder Atariwriter picture

Atari 600XL Computer Bundle TESTED WORKING With Cassette Recorder Atariwriter

$161.95