Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: Pxe boot with Broadcom BCM5754 does not work

  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
  •  


~OVERSTOCK~ 14

~OVERSTOCK~ 14" Lenovo ThinkPad Laptop PC: Intel i5 Dual Core Built in Webcam

$174.99



~OVERSTOCK~ 15.6

~OVERSTOCK~ 15.6" Lenovo ThinkPad Laptop: Intel i5 8GB RAM 256GB SSD Win 10

$169.99



For Lenovo ideapad Flex 5 15IIL05 15ITL05 LCD Touch Screen Bezel 5D10S39643 New picture

For Lenovo ideapad Flex 5 15IIL05 15ITL05 LCD Touch Screen Bezel 5D10S39643 New

$135.00



Lenovo Legion 5 15.6

Lenovo Legion 5 15.6" Gaming Laptop AMD R7 7735HS RTX 4060 16GB RAM 512GB SSD

$849.99



Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5i, 16″, i5-13500H, 16 GB, 1 TB SSD, RTX 3050, 120Hz, Laptop picture

Lenovo IdeaPad Pro 5i, 16″, i5-13500H, 16 GB, 1 TB SSD, RTX 3050, 120Hz, Laptop

$709.99



Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e 11.6

Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e 11.6" 2in1 Touch Intel Core i3 4GB RAM 128GB SSD Win10

$58.00



Lenovo 300e 11.6

Lenovo 300e 11.6" 2in1 Touchscreen Laptop Computer 4GB RAM 64GB SSD Windows 10

$83.99



Lenovo ThinkPad E560 Intel Core i5-6200U 2.3GHz 8GB RAM 500GB HDD W10P w/Charger picture

Lenovo ThinkPad E560 Intel Core i5-6200U 2.3GHz 8GB RAM 500GB HDD W10P w/Charger

$74.99



Lenovo Notebook ThinkPad L14 AMD Gen 3 Laptop, 14

Lenovo Notebook ThinkPad L14 AMD Gen 3 Laptop, 14" FHD IPS 60Hz

$409.99



Lenovo Notebook ThinkPad T14s Gen 4 Laptop, 14

Lenovo Notebook ThinkPad T14s Gen 4 Laptop, 14" IPS 60Hz, i7-1355U,

$704.63