Bionic Puppy 8.0 x64: kernel does not allow reboot on T100TA

[3guesses]

I have been trying to get Bionic Puppy 8.0 x64 installed to the internal eMMC of an Asus T100TA with little success: the kernel or ramdisk fails to load correctly and it bombs out to a kernel shell (I think) - see http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117895 for further details.

To make matters worse, when this happens the T100TA freezes when you try to reboot it either by issuing the command "reboot" or pressing the power button, forcing the user to power-cycle the tablet. Fortunately the "poweroff" command does work otherwise you have to press and hold the power button for 10+ seconds (=very tedious).

I think this might also be the case if you boot to a Live CD from USB, but I'm not 100% on that as I generally choose to shutdown rather than reboot in such situations.

[bigpup]

For the type of problem you describe.
You are talking about what may have to be done.
Any commands used, may or may not work.
Reboot command needs more of a fully working normal operating system than poweroff requires.

[3guesses]

Just to confirm that the reboot action after booting the Bionic Puppy 8.0 Live CD on the T100TA also seems to hang.

Further info: trying to boot a Bay Trail Puppy frugal install on the eMMC also fails, BUT Ctrl-Alt-Del successfully reboots the machine whereas the poweroff command does nothing

[bigpup]

Normal boot to desktop Bionicpup64 8.0
Frugal install using a save folder.
Fully updated using Quickpet->Info Bionicpup updates

In terminal

Code: Select all

reboot

or

Code: Select all

poweroff

Both work as they should.
Can not duplicate your problem.

You could have a not completely good download of the Bionicpup64 8.0 iso and or a bad install.

Usually it is ctrl+alt+backspace for key command

Does menu->Exit shut down or reboot options work?

[3guesses]

Normal boot to desktop Bionicpup64 8.0
Frugal install using a save folder.
Fully updated using Quickpet->Info Bionicpup updates

In terminal

Code: Select all

reboot

or

Code: Select all

poweroff

Both work as they should.
Can not duplicate your problem.

You could have a not completely good download of the Bionicpup64 8.0 iso and or a bad install.

Usually it is ctrl+alt+backspace for key command

Does menu->Exit shut down or reboot options work?

It is specific to this hardware. I do not get this problem on my other PCs.

[williams2]

Puppy, like most Linuxes, starts a small linux os in ram,
initrd, which starts the main os.

If you boot a frugal BionicPup64 the initrd file system
is in /initrd/files/

/initrd/files/bin/poweroff is a script
and /initrd/files/bin/reboot is a symlink to /initrd/files/bin/poweroff.

The initrd probably started or the system would halt with a kernel panic error.

If the symlink to poweroff was not created properly,
then poweroff might work but reboot would not work.

Eventually, the poweroff/reboot scripts call busybox reboot,
after trying to unmount first.

If you want, one of these should work, bypassing the scripts:

Code: Select all

busybox reboot -f
/bin/busybox reboot -f
busybox poweroff -f
/bin/busybox poweroff -f

At that point nothing should be mounted anyway.

To poweroff the computer, acpi needs to be working properly.
If acpi is not enabled, poweroff should halt with a message
that it is safe to turn off the computer,
(by pressing the power button.)

[enrique]

....To poweroff the computer, acpi needs to be working properly. If acpi is not enabled, poweroff should halt with a message
that it is safe to turn off the computer,
(by pressing the power button.)

Nice info. One of my PC was behaving some times like that. But I know Its CMOS battery was failing. I guess if ACPI got OFF in CMOS that will explain such behavior. Thanks.
Note: I know I need to buy a new battery.

[3guesses]

Puppy, like most Linuxes, starts a small linux os in ram,
initrd, which starts the main os.

If you boot a frugal BionicPup64 the initrd file system
is in /initrd/files/

/initrd/files/bin/poweroff is a script
and /initrd/files/bin/reboot is a symlink to /initrd/files/bin/poweroff.

The initrd probably started or the system would halt with a kernel panic error.

If the symlink to poweroff was not created properly,
then poweroff might work but reboot would not work.

Eventually, the poweroff/reboot scripts call busybox reboot,
after trying to unmount first.

If you want, one of these should work, bypassing the scripts:

Code: Select all

busybox reboot -f
/bin/busybox reboot -f
busybox poweroff -f
/bin/busybox poweroff -f

At that point nothing should be mounted anyway.

To poweroff the computer, acpi needs to be working properly.
If acpi is not enabled, poweroff should halt with a message
that it is safe to turn off the computer,
(by pressing the power button.)

Thanks for that. Here are my results from trying these out:

On standard Bionic Puppy 8.0 x64, "poweroff" successfully powers off the T100TA but "reboot" does nothing, and both Ctrl-Alt-Del and "busybox reboot -f" produce the message "reboot: Restarting system" and then it hangs.

On BayTrail Bionic Puppy 8.0 x64, "reboot" and "poweroff" do nothing, but "busybox poweroff -f" successfully powers off the T100TA, and both Ctrl-Alt-Del and "busybox reboot -f" successfully reboot it.

From what I can tell, pretty much everything in /bin/ is a link to busybox (including "poweroff" and "reboot"), but I'm not sure exactly what arguments each passes?

All very curious!

[williams2]

busybox reboot -f is about as close as you can get to a simple hardware reboot, about the same as pressing the reset button, if you had one. The -f bypasses the init script, in case any of the shutdown scripts are causing trouble.

I'm not sure exactly what arguments each passes?

I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to.

Code: Select all

busybox reboot --help
	-d SEC	Delay interval
	-n	Do not sync
	-f	Force (don't go through init)

/bin/poweroff in initrd doesn't seem to use any arguments.

If busybox reboot hangs
1) vmlinuz or initrd could be corrupted
2) your tablet could have a defective ram or eMMC byte or two
3) that Puppy does not support your hardware properly
4) ?

If the md5sum of the iso file you downloaded is correct then the iso is pretty much guaranteed to have downloaded perfectly.
You could compare vmlinuz and initrd whether they are on usb or cd/dvd drive or on an internal drive with the ones in the iso to be sure they are good and not corrupted.

There are programs that can test your ram and drives.

It is very possible that the Puppy simply does not support your hardware. Another Puppy variant might work better. Linux may not work well with very new hardware. In which case it might be better to give up, unless you want to try recompiling the kernel. Or try another Puppy or Linux distro.

Does Bionic Puppy 8.0 x64 boot and get to the gui (with buttons to click?)
Or does it never get to the gui, and therefore never lets you create a savefile or save folder?

If the kernel does not have support for your eMMC, it's probably not going to work, even if it will boot to ram with no savefile. But you could keep a small savefile on the usb drive.

[3guesses]

busybox reboot -f is about as close as you can get to a simple hardware reboot, about the same as pressing the reset button, if you had one. The -f bypasses the init script, in case any of the shutdown scripts are causing trouble.

I'm not sure exactly what arguments each passes?

I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to.

When I run "ls -l /bin" it just lists everything as a link to busysbox, eg. "touch -> busybox", but doesn't specify what arguments are being passed to busybox by the link.

Code: Select all

busybox reboot --help
	-d SEC	Delay interval
	-n	Do not sync
	-f	Force (don't go through init)

/bin/poweroff in initrd doesn't seem to use any arguments.

If busybox reboot hangs
1) vmlinuz or initrd could be corrupted
2) your tablet could have a defective ram or eMMC byte or two
3) that Puppy does not support your hardware properly
4) ?

I would put good money on the cause being #3 (Puppy does not support my hardware properly). I've been on a bit of an odyssey trying to get Puppy 8.0 to boot from an install on the T100TA's eMMC (see http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=117895). In the end I managed to boot the install using kernels 5.4.x from Buster x64.

It is very possible that the Puppy simply does not support your hardware. Another Puppy variant might work better. Linux may not work well with very new hardware. In which case it might be better to give up, unless you want to try recompiling the kernel. Or try another Puppy or Linux distro.

Yes, this!

Does Bionic Puppy 8.0 x64 boot and get to the gui (with buttons to click?)
Or does it never get to the gui, and therefore never lets you create a savefile or save folder?

If the kernel does not have support for your eMMC, it's probably not going to work, even if it will boot to ram with no savefile. But you could keep a small savefile on the usb drive.

Puppy 8.0 seems to work fine when booted from live CD (on USB flash drive) but it won't boot an install on the eMMC using the standard kernel. Apparently it is possible to boot from the card reader, so installing to a micro SD card would also appear to be a possibility, but I really want to be able to install to the T100TA's eMMC - that's what it's there for