Subject: CPU#0 stuck for 22s

From: Riccardo Mottola <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2020 12:24:27 +0100

Hi All!

I have Alpine Linux x86-32 on a Laptop with Pentium 4, I started an 
alpine upgrde of several packages [the system was not used for months 
and so for sure outdated] and I got error an error about "cpu stuck" in 
an endless loop. At the end I had to force shutdown the system. At boot 
the filesystem is totally corrupted and fsck cannot even start!

Fine, let's reinstall. Latest CD, start and then setup-alpine.
I configure everything, partition the disk, when installation starts I 
see an endless amount of:

"watchdog: BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 23s! [apk:2843]

and the system is stuck again, now with a half-backed install apparently...

Riccardo

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From: Paul Zillmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2020 17:20:22 +0100

Hello Riccardo,

would you mind sharing the exact CPU model with us?
I'm thinking about PAE/noPAE CPU features here.

- Paul

Am 17.11.20 um 12:24 schrieb Riccardo Mottola:
> and so for sure outdated] and I got error an error about "cpu stuck" 
> in an endless loop. At the end I had to force shutdown the system. At 
> boot the filesystem is totally corrupted and fsck cannot even start!
>

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From: Riccardo Mottola <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2020 17:28:08 +0100

Hi,

> I'm thinking about PAE/noPAE CPU features here. 

The BIOS reports this as Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.4 GHz

When booting the Alpine linux CD, the CPU info reported is: Family 15,
model 2, stepping 7
256 KB cache
address size 36 / 32

By looking here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_4_processors#Pentium_4

It should be a Northwood

I am not awayre of Linux explcitely removing support for such a CPU and
I am running Linux on older machines, like real 586-class. Maybe some
specifich Alpine configuration?

Some posts on the net suggest issues with overclocking or similar,
however this is a Laptop, not overclocked and it did run FreeBSD fine
for year, I recently switched to Alpine. I did not notice the "issue"
because I installed on another system and transderred the Hard Disk.

Also, the issue is a "soft lockup" so in theory it should also relieve,
but it does not, indiccating that perhaps something is stuck?

Riccardo

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From: PICCORO McKAY Lenz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2020 08:04:17 -0400

is very ilogical that a working system is going to be upgraded ! That's no
more to say in those olders machines..

I suggest NOT USE LAST! just try first alpine 3.10 .. in my personal
xperience i used alpine 3.8 with some packages of alpine 3.10 (like
firefox) cos the kernel:

people must think: why must I upgrade if are perfectly working? *Do you
know guys that newer linux kernels cut off support for many older devices
and machines?*

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From: Wolf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2020 19:08:10 +0100

> xperience i used alpine 3.8 with some packages of alpine 3.10 (like

This is very poor advice, in general packages compiled for one version of
alpine do not have to work when executed in different version of alpine.
They might work, they might not work. But it's best not to rely on that.

As a side note, alpine 3.8 is EoL-ed for quite a while now.

> know guys that newer linux kernels cut off support for many older devices

Could you please provide some links to back this claim up? I'm not
aware, so would like to learn more.

W.

-- 
There are only two hard things in Computer Science:
cache invalidation, naming things and off-by-one errors.

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From: Banibrata Dutta <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2020 00:03:31 +0530

> aware, so would like to learn more.

Interesting question. This had come up when I was looking for a driver for
a very old pre-UVC webcam I had, and due to Covid-19 triggered scarcity had
to make use of it.
Perhaps this one: https://lwn.net/Articles/769468/ that comes close enough,
I suppose, to be non-anecdotal and from an authority figure.
There are other anecdotal references to such trimming, but those are not
backed by specific statements from Linux kernel developer community AFAIK.