Major bug found in 4.1.x

This bug affects the "normal" Puppy with 2.6.25.16 kernel, not the "retro". It will account for why some people experienced trouble with USB, but it was ok in the retro.

I am currently playing with the 2.6.27.4 kernel, and I suddenly noticed that the 'ohci-hcd' module has two dependencies: 'usbcore' and 'ssb'. Er, 'ssb' is not in the initial ramdisk.

I checked 4.1 and 4.1.1, the same situation with the 2.6.25.16 kernel.

What this means is that USB storage that requires the 'ohci-hcd' module will not be detected in the initial ramdisk, which means that you can't boot from USB nor have a 'pup_save' in USB.

Note that the 'ohci-hcd' driver will get loaded later on (after the switch_root) so you can access the USB drives then. Just not at bootup.

The 'uhci-hcd' driver is the most common USB host driver, and that only requires the 'usbcore' driver, so all is well there.

Amazing that such a serious bug managed to get through all those alpha and beta stages of testing!

Hmmm, does this mean I have to bring out a 4.1.2 second bugfix release? Note, if you have 4.1 or 4.1.1 Unleashed, it is easy to fix this bug -- just edit 'createpuppy' script and add "ssb.ko " to the 'NEEDEDINITRDMODS' variable.

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Comments

Bug(s)
Username: Sage
"does this mean I have to bring out a 4.1.2 second bugfix release?" Definitely. But might be worth waiting a week or so for any other mission-critical features to turn up. PS. My P/W didn't auto-insert this morning???

bug will be fixed in alpha 4.2
Username: lobster
""does this mean I have to bring out a 4.1.2 second bugfix release?" I should think that Warren (WhoDo) can add this fix to the Alpha of 4.2 as it is easy to fix from unleashed. Thanks for 4.1.1 Unleashed which arrived safely in the post today

set date and time
Username: eprv
"Had no problems with USB in 4.11 few kinds of sticks work well,in general this is a remarkably stable and useful edition of Puppy. but if a bugfix release is considered than when setting time, the screen goes blank for about a minute and only when it comes back it says that it will go blank, could be uncomfortable for new users.

4.1.1 redoux
Username: dogone
"If 4.1.2 must happen, I suggest it address more outstanding 4.1.1 "issues". Rather than you authoring all these fixes Barry, I suggest we ask the core developers to create a *very* short list of candidate issues for 4.1.2 and help in addressing them. This would minimize the impact on you and might prove an excellent transition exercise.

candidate fixes
Username: disciple
"It looks like the guy who found our forum because he had the same bug as us with Seamonkey/FF/Th crashing when using the insert key in a text entry field has found a workaround. If it works for us too, this would be good for another bug-fix release: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=247784#247784 If anyone could locate and fix whatever is breaking pmount it would be good too: e.g. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=247619#247619

long term support
Username: Viking Sailor
"Form my reading of the forum it sounds like changing to the 2.6.27.4 kernel is very doable. Considering that the kernel.org's commitment to "long term support" for this kernel. This would give us a base for a new long term support puppy. Paul

Bug fix release
Username: WhoDo
"Lobster wrote: "I should think that Warren (WhoDo) can add this fix to the Alpha of 4.2 as it is easy to fix from unleashed. Thanks for 4.1.1 Unleashed which arrived safely in the post today" The bug mentioned, and the Pmount problem, are both show stoppers IMHO. That requires an urgent bug fix update, and can't wait for 4.2 - we wouldn't be publicly promoting 4.2alpha as a bug fixed 4.1.1 anyway; that's not what an alpha is for. I'm with the guys who suggested the devs help Barry roll out a 4.1.2 bug fix release OR provide a patch (if that's possible). That will get to the core users when an alpha wouldn't. Barry, my CD arrived yesterday too. Thank you, mate. It will save me heaps of time on setting up for 4.2 development.

4.1.2
Username: lobster
""I'm with the guys who suggested the devs help Barry roll out a 4.1.2 bug fix release OR provide a patch (if that's possible)." :cool: Sounds good to me. Keep us posted Warren, on 4.2, especially if you need any help. Also I wonder if this might be a good time (or is it to early) to uses Jeremy's (Pizzasgood) Unleashed SVN system?

Probably early
Username: Pizzasgood
"It seems to be working so far, but right now it's just running off my old computer under my bed. Might be better to wait until Caneri gets his servers up and running, which I believe he's now on the verge of (they seem to be online now). But if y'all want to start using it now anyways, not a big deal. Just let me know in advance so I can bring it up to date and give people proper logins, and disable the testperson account (or maybe just limit that to a specific "sandbox" area).

More like ...
Username: alienjeff
"[i]"Amazing that such a serious bug managed to get through all those alpha and beta stages of testing!" [/i] Nay. More like [b]par for the course[/b].

4.1.2 would be nice
Username: downsouth
"Only if you feel like it Barry. BTW mount.cifs is not in 411 retro.

Booting "full" off usb
Username: erikson
"For info: I have investigated booting *full* installs off usb devices (flash and hdd) and I have documented my solution in forum thread [url=http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=34263&start=15]How to do a full install on external USB hdd[/url] I just added an "additional note" post (post # 21 of that thread) discussing how to patch my special version for this 2.6.25.16 ohci-hcd bug. If there's sufficient user interest, there might be a way to incorporate full-install booting off usb devices into regular future Puppy releases. It would be a matter of merging my special full-boot initrd with the regular one.

Another candidate bug for a bugfix release
Username: disciple
"/tmp/versioncleanup/ doesn't show up after an upgrade, pfix=clean, or pfix=ram. There may well be a simple fix, in which case it would be good for a bugfix release. Could it be something to do with the change back to having /tmp in ram, and the timing of the creation of the tmpfs? http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=250538#250538

Tags: puppy