"upup-471.sfs not found"

Forum member 'flugwelpe' reported this, on a machine (gericom blockbuster) that has no hard drive.

I wondered if the lack of any hard drive would confuse the 'init' script, so unplugged the hard drive on a midle-age PC (1GHz Celeron, 128MB RAM) and booted off the CD. I tested with 'pfix=ram' and without, in both cases it booted ok.

So, it would seem that Puppy could not find the CD drive in the gericom blockbuster, or was unable to mount the CD disc. If Puppy 4.2 and earlier do boot, the problem may be with the new PATA drivers that have replaced the old IDE drivers -- in which case the only solution is to use a kernel which is compiled with the old driver modules.

I suggest, if a tester has a hang early in the boot process, try with boot parameter "puppy loglevel=7" to see more on-screen information.

Anyway, I have compiled an alternative 2.6.29.3 kernel with the old IDE drivers. When I release alpha9, I will provide an alternative Jaunty Puppy build with this kernel. Please download it and report if bootup/shutdown is fixed. Anyone else with a bootup/shutdown problem with earlier alphas, please test this too.

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Comments

PATA/SATA & retro releases
Username: Sage
Folks will know that I recycle a lot of old kit. So far,I have yet to find any instance where the retro runs but not the std. SATA release. Notwithstanding, unlike so many Yanks, I rarely ever run proprietary boxes. Whenever such junk is gifted, I strip them and re-use the parts. Only the boards themselves have occasionally introduced problems, but even these can often be identified by manufacturer and force-flashed to their original designation. Really, I cannot recommend that proprietary HW be left intact in expectation that it might function with a real OS. It's really no excuse for anyone to use, much less purchase, over-priced and under-specc'ed badged junk. Building your own is literally child's play. In the USA, folks can visit, eg. NewEgg for their kit, Brits go to CCL, mainland Europe - Komplett. There must be similar mail order suppliers in Oz and there certainly are in HK and Tokyo! Anyone still experiencing difficulties - I send out free advice and a free 10c screwdriver.

update
Username: flugwelpe
"Another forum member, brianh, told me he has the same problem and pointed me to your post, which I somehow missed then. So I'll update info here. I'll check again, if the any of the alpha-9 -IDE build works directly from CD or not.. I also [b]can[/b] start woof upup [b]476 via wakepup[/b] from a USB-stick (needs acpi=force) .At the moment i have a puppy 4.0 running kinda well on that machine (also via wakepup+USB). Posted ~success message in woof 9 thread: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=42722&start=45

Upup booting
Username: BarryK
"Flugwelpe, The latest kernel I am using is 2.6.29.6, which will be in pup 4.3beta1 that I'll probably upload tonight. So, give that a spin. Another thing to try, the 2.6.29.6 kernel is configured for SMP (multiprocessors) and sometimes the kernel boot option 'nosmp' is needed -- hopefully in very rare cases -- but you could try that too. I haven't been monitoring the 'woof 9' thread. I'll see if I can do another Ubuntu pup build, bring it up to date.

mostly problem with pfix=ram
Username: flugwelpe
"I found that I mostly have a problem with pfix=ram . So it's a different problem from what I thought. I can start the alphas (with acpi=force), but only if I don't use pfix=ram . Found it out as removed my usb-stick and put in the CD. Thought pfix=ram would do the same as not having a save file somewhere, but i was wrong, it seems. A current upup build would be great neithertheless ;)

Tags: woof