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Previous/Resolved Issues and Solutions

Hangs in desktop apps in 2.6.12
Local network traffic hangs unless I reorder my network rules in 2.6.12

Solution. 2.6.12 introduces a netfilter bug, causing network traffic hangs and hence slow desktop performance for some setups.

This is fixed in gentoo-sources-2.6.12-r5

Bug 96948
Date: 20050707

Games or general system slows to a crawl on 2.6.9
kswapd consumes lots of CPU on 2.6.9

Solution. A kernel bug present in 2.6.9 means that sometimes the kswapd process takes lots of CPU time and drains your system resources. This most commonly occurs while playing games or doing similarly intensive tasks.

This has been fixed in 2.6.9-r2.

Bug 69076
Date: 20041030
Kernel: 2.6.9

Parallel printing not working in 2.6.9
/dev/lp0 missing in 2.6.9

Solution. You may observe the following message in dmesg:

lp: driver loaded but no devices found


This is a kernel bug in one of the parallel port drivers, which has been fixed in 2.6.9-r2.

Bug 69124
Date: 20041030
Kernel: 2.6.9

usb-storage isn't working like it used to
usb-storage broke after a kernel upgrade
New ub driver isn't working

Solution. This isn't definate, but chances are that you've been caught by the new experimental USB block device driver ("ub"). This is, in some cases, problematic. (You'll notice when you are using ub since your dmesg log will be complaining about "uba" as opposed to "sda" or similar.)
For now you can go back to the old driver by disabling CONFIG_BLK_DEV_UB (Device Drivers -> Block Devices -> Low Performance USB Block Driver) and using the old usb-storage module found under the USB section (enabled by default)

In more recent kernel releases, ub is in better shape.

Bug 69218
Date: 20041030
Kernel: 2.6.9

System is unstable when 64GB HIGHMEM is enabled
I have more than 4GB RAM and my system is unstable

Solution. vesafb-tng had an obscure bug which caused this instability. This is fixed as of gentoo-sources-2.6.14.

Bug 101359
Date: 20050824

My ALPS touchpad isn't working as of 2.6.11/2.6.12

Solution. As of 2.6.11, an ALPS touchpad driver was introduced in the kernel (previously, it just emulated it as a standard mouse). This means that the default behaviour changed slightly. You should use the synaptics Xorg driver, see the homepage for more info.

The new driver seems to be working reliably now.

Bug 84657
Bug 94476
Date: 20050626

"Unknown parameter device_mode" error
ALSA broken; lots of "Unknown symbol" messages appear on load

Solution. ALSA has recently dropped the device_mode parameter. If you still have this paremeter in use, then the module load will fail. You'll see a message (maybe only in "dmesg"):

snd: Unknown parameter `device_mode'


Immediately after this message, you'll see *many* messages like these:

snd_timer: Unknown symbol snd_info_register
snd_timer: Unknown symbol snd_info_create_module_entry
snd_timer: Unknown symbol snd_info_free_entry
snd_timer: Unknown symbol snd_verbose_printk


Note that the "Unknown symbol" messages aren't actually correct - the real problem is the device_node parameter, but people tend to miss that error because it gets flooded out by all the "Unknown symbol" messages.

This is usually caused by a file in /etc/modules.d supplying a device_mode parameter.

To find which file is supplying this, you can do:

# grep device_mode /etc/modules.d/*


Usually, it is a file called alsa containing the line:

options snd device_mode=0666


Remove this line, save the file, run modules-update, and the problem should be solved.

Bug 106400
Date: 20051103

Kernel hangs for about 30 seconds during bootup, "Probing IDE" messages are displayed

Solution. An IDE update that went into 2.6.9 is responsible for this. This non-critical issue can be solved by disabling Generic IDE and enabling support for your specific IDE controller in your kernel config.

See this bug for more info.

Bug 68240
Date: 20041030
Kernel: 2.6.9

My system is freezing on shutdown with gentoo-sources-2.6.12
System freeze when unmounting NTFS partitions

Solution. The combination of NTFS with inotify often causes a system freeze when you unmount an NTFS partition.

Thanks to Anton Altaparmakov, this is fixed in 2.6.12-r4.

Bug 92719
Date: 20050703

modprobe can't find modules installed through portage
Modules are being installed into the wrong place
My kernel version has an "n" on the end (e.g. 2.6.9-gentoo-r1n)
localversion is not yet used by portage

Solution. Kernel 2.6.9 introduced a new option (localversion) allowing you to specify some text to add onto the end of your kernel version string. Many people mistook this for a yes/no option (especially the "make oldconfig" users) and ended up setting this to the letter "n". For this reason, you may well have a kernel version string such as "2.6.9-gentoo-r1n".
Portage does not yet support localversion and will install external modules (e.g. nvidia-kernel) using the normal "2.6.9-gentoo-r1" path. If you entered a localversion (or accidently chose "n") then this will mean that these modules are getting installed in the wrong place. For now, unset CONFIG_LOCALVERSION and remove /usr/src/linux/localversion* and recompile your kernel. The portage developers are working on localversion support for a future releases. Additionally, kernel module ebuilds are being migrated to a new backend which does support localversion correctly.

Most ebuilds in portage now support localversion correctly.

Bug 66674
Bug 67804
Date: 20041030
Kernel: 2.6.9

nvidia binary graphics module fails to load with "Unknown symbol" message
Unknown symbol __VMALLOC_RESERVE with nvidia

Solution. If you recieve the following error when trying to load the nvidia module:

FATAL: Error inserting nvidia (/lib/modules/2.6.9/kernel/drivers/video/nvidia.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)


...and dmesg reads:

nvidia: Unknown symbol __VMALLOC_RESERVE


Then you need to upgrade to nvidia-kernel-1.0.6111-r2 or newer. This may involve you going into the testing branch:
echo media-video/nvidia-kernel >> /etc/portage/package.keywords

emerge nvidia-kernel


For more info about the testing branch, see the portage handbook.

Bug 68561
Date: 20041030
Kernel: 2.6.9

Automatically generated: Fri Dec 6 08:34:05 AM EST 2024 by mpagano