Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Andrew Johnson <[email protected]> · Thu, 21 Jan 1999 15:54:30 -0600

Jeff Hill wrote:
> 
> Typically I see these delays only once during the boot, but sometimes (usually) it is the
> symbol table, and not the first file loaded (the system image) that seems to delay the boot
> for an extended period. This delay appears to track with certain models of single board computers
> (SBCs) when other SPCs models boot normally off the same server. I dont claim to fully understand
> this behavior. The systems here with this affliction boot reliably, but continue to tax our patience.

This makes sense - the symbol table is the first file loaded by the new
running system image; AIUI the problam occurs because the new system is
re-using a port number which the boot prom already used while loading the
boot image.  I guess you might be able to get around this if you could
identify where in the boot image this counter is initialised, and ensure
that the value used by the disk image is significantly different to the
value used by the boot prom.  That might not be easy to find without
source code, although I guess it *could* be done.

- Andrew

-- 
New country, new job, new address, new .signature; same old Andrew Johnson

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System