6.0 panics on boot

[Hans Nieser]

Derek Ragona wrote:
> At 07:19 PM 11/6/2005, Hans Nieser wrote:
> 
>> Derek Ragona wrote:
>>
>>> I have a computer that has been running FreeBSD 4.X and 5.X without
>>> problems.  It runs 5.4 with no problems at all.  This system has an 
>>> Intel 845 Motherboard and chipset, Intel Pentium 4 1.6 GHz CPU, 1 GB 
>>> RAM, NVidea GEForce MX/MX 400 video card, atapi CD-RW, IDE hard 
>>> drive, standard floppy.  Nothing very exotic in this hardware.
>>> I tried first to cvsup to 6.0, and rebuild everything.  The build was 
>>> fine including a custom kernel, but when I tried to boot the new 6.0, 
>>> I got a panic, Fatal trap 12, page fault at the NVidea driver in the 
>>> boot.  So I re-booted the kernel.old, reverted my sources to 5.4 and 
>>> rebuilt the system all again.
>>> As the system rebuilt I downloaded and burned the ISO 6.0 image.
>>> I tried to boot the ISO image and do a binary upgrade.  The CD booted 
>>> 6.0 fine, and the upgrade installed with only one error that the 
>>> X.org was already present.  When I tried to boot the new 6.0 GENERIC 
>>> kernel that was installed, I got the same panic/page fault error I 
>>> had when I updated via cvsup.
>>> But since the same GENERIC kernel boots fine from CD I suspect there 
>>> may be some loader options I might need?  I'd appreciate any help 
>>> with getting 6.0 to boot without the panic.
>>> Thanks
>>
>>
>> Hi Derek,
>>
>> You probably just have to stop the nvidia driver from loading by 
>> specifying "unset nvidia_load" at the boot prompt and reinstall the 
>> nvidia driver once the system is booted.
>>
>> That's what I did at least, and I have had no problems while I've 
>> heard from other people that didn't disable and rebuilt their nvidia 
>> drivers that they also got panics on boot.
> 
> Hans,
> 
> Let me see if I understand the process.  When I go to boot 6.0, escape 
> to the boot prompt, then type:
> unset nvidia_load
> 
> Once the system boots then, how do I reinstall the nvidia driver?  That 
> last step has me confused.  Would I rebuild the kernel again?  Or 
> something else?

I (hopefully correctly) assumed you were using NVIDIA's own native drivers 
for FreeBSD as a loadable module (from the x11/nvidia-driver port), if so, 
then after booting without the nvidia module loaded, a "portupgrade -f 
nvidia-driver" should do the trick (or pkg_delete nvidia-driver && cd 
/usr/ports/x11/nvidia-driver && make install clean).

But just in case, this is how I upgraded my system; I deleted all the 
ports/packages I had installed (since they have to be rebuilt for 6.0 
anyway) with "pkg_delete -a", cvsupped ports and the RELENG_6_0 sources, 
rebuilt the kernel/world, commented out any third party modules (including 
nvidia) in /boot/loader.conf, rebooted and installed all the packages 
(including x11/nvidia-driver) I needed, and that's basically it.