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changed distributions, kernel not working..

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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My server suffered a little internal fire recently (note, fans are more valuable than you think!), so I had to setup a new box, and I decided to switch linux distributions from Slackware to Ubuntu.  

 

I rebuilt the toolchain the way I always have (I'm using the older version from Marcs page, not the newer ones), and built a new kernel image... but it won't work on my board; it won't even start to boot (nothing happens after I run the terminal). To see if it was hardware, I used the same SOF image and downloaded an older vmlinux binary that I had, and it worked, indicating it wasn't hardware. I then recompiled that same vmlinux binary with the same config file used to generate it originally, and the new image didn't work. This really seems like a toolchain build problem, and I thought maybe because I'm using different versions of everything to compile. For reference, Im' using gcc 3.3.6 (but I configure buildroot to use 3.4.3). 

 

Any ideas?
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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--- Quote Start ---  

originally posted by jdhar@Feb 13 2006, 09:22 PM 

my server suffered a little internal fire recently (note, fans are more valuable than you think!), so i had to setup a new box, and i decided to switch linux distributions from slackware to ubuntu.  

 

i rebuilt the toolchain the way i always have (i'm using the older version from marcs page, not the newer ones), and built a new kernel image... but it won't work on my board; it won't even start to boot (nothing happens after i run the terminal). to see if it was hardware, i used the same sof image and downloaded an older vmlinux binary that i had, and it worked, indicating it wasn't hardware. i then recompiled that same vmlinux binary with the same config file used to generate it originally, and the new image didn't work. this really seems like a toolchain build problem, and i thought maybe because i'm using different versions of everything to compile. for reference, im' using gcc 3.3.6 (but i configure buildroot to use 3.4.3). 

 

any ideas? 

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No one has any suggestions? I was thinking that maybe it was because I switched to an AMD64-bit architecture. If I extract old toolchain binaries that I have lying around, I can&#39;t execute them (when I try, I just get &#39;no such file or directory&#39;), which is very odd; is there something specific ni the toolchain build that targets only 32-bit architectures, or should this not matter?
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Altera_Forum
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Hi Jdhar, 

 

Maybe you should try Fedora, they have x86_64 port. I am using FC5 test2, and yum update. 

They have the latest kernel and drivers to support newer boards. I think Ubuntu is not targeted for a development platform.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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jdhar, 

 

Even in the 64-bit port of Quartus II on Linux, a fair amount of the tool runs in 32-bit mode. You can easily determine which binaries are 32-bit and which are 64-bit by performing a &#39;file&#39; command on them. 

 

Now, directly to your question....most, if not all, of the toolchain is 32-bit code. It does successfully run on 64-bit architectures through a 32-bit "emulation" layer. 

 

I&#39;m using an amd64 version of Gentoo Linux with no issues. 

 

I would suspect that you have some sort of installation or environment issue causing your problem. 

 

Cheers, 

 

- slacker
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Thanks for the replies... I can&#39;t just switch to Fedora because I don&#39;t know that much about the distro, and it&#39;s my server so i need to be able to administer it well. Ubuntu isn&#39;t much different than debian, so I&#39;m familiar with that. 

 

Anyway, I reinstalled it with the 32-bit kernel instead of the 64, and it worked, so it must be related somehow. I don&#39;t think the problem is with running 32-bit executables; as you said, you can do that through an emulation layer... most of the executables i was using were for 32-bit machines. But something to do with GCC and the toolchain build is where it goes wrong... I did some reading, and there are definitely some things to watch out for. But if you have it working on a 64-bit machine, then it could possibly be some setup issue, just not sure what.  

 

I don&#39;t need the performance of 64-bit (Im&#39; not really convinced it&#39;s much better anyway), so the 32-bit kernel is fine.  

 

Hippo, why do you think that UBuntu is not targeted for a dev environment? There are two modes of installation, user and server. User is very &#39;mandrake&#39; like... nice interface, installs everything you could imagine... but server is a lot better, and the packages make it much easier. Just curious to see what&#39;s wrong with it... 

 

J
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Hi Jdhar, 

 

I may be wrong about UBuntu. I should not say that without actually running it for some time. I will try it on a 64 bits machine.
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