[PlanetCCRMA] F8 on iMac won't boot

[Michael Gurevich]

Thanks Nando,

acpi=off did the trick. The kernel boots, jack and alsa seem to work 
normally (after removing the alsa-plugins-pulseaudio package), but with 
one weirdness: the audio level is really low. I'm using the built-in 
Intel hardware:
  Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)

I've cranked every output level that I know about up to maximum, but 
everything (audio CD, soundfile playback, full-scale sine wave from Pd, 
tried all from both jack and alsa) sounds somewhere between pianissimo 
and piano in headphones, and non-existent from the built in speakers 
(I'm assuming it's there but masked by the fan noise). Just to be sure, 
I verified that the audio hardware works normally on the same machine 
booted in OS X. I must be missing something obvious... Help? FWIW, 
here's the output of amixer:

[gurevich at gurv ~]$ amixer
Simple mixer control 'Headphone',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 64
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 64 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
   Front Right: Playback 64 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'PCM',0
   Capabilities: pvolume
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 255
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 255 [100%] [0.00dB]
   Front Right: Playback 255 [100%] [0.00dB]
Simple mixer control 'Front',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 64
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 64 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
   Front Right: Playback 64 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Surround',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 64
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 64 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
   Front Right: Playback 64 [100%] [0.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Line',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [on]
   Front Right: Playback 31 [100%] [12.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Mic',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pswitch
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Playback 0 - 31
   Mono:
   Front Left: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
   Front Right: Playback 0 [0%] [-34.50dB] [off]
Simple mixer control 'Mic Boost',0
   Capabilities: volume
   Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: 0 - 3
   Front Left: 0 [0%]
   Front Right: 0 [0%]
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined cswitch cswitch-joined
   Playback channels: Mono
   Capture channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [off] Capture [off]
Simple mixer control 'Capture',0
   Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
   Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Capture 0 - 46
   Front Left: Capture 0 [0%] [-16.00dB] [on]
   Front Right: Capture 0 [0%] [-16.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Capture',1
   Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
   Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Capture 0 - 46
   Front Left: Capture 0 [0%] [-16.00dB] [on]
   Front Right: Capture 0 [0%] [-16.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Capture',2
   Capabilities: cvolume cswitch
   Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
   Limits: Capture 0 - 46
   Front Left: Capture 0 [0%] [-16.00dB] [on]
   Front Right: Capture 0 [0%] [-16.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Input Source',0
   Capabilities: cenum
   Items: 'Mic' 'Line'
   Item0: 'Mic'
Simple mixer control 'Input Source',1
   Capabilities: cenum
   Items: 'Mic' 'Line'
   Item0: 'Mic'
Simple mixer control 'Input Source',2
   Capabilities: cenum
   Items: 'Mic' 'Line'
   Item0: 'Mic'

Fernando Lopez-Lezcano wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 14:38 +0100, Michael Gurevich wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I just installed F8 on a brand new iMac, following the outline on the 
>> CCRMA wiki (http://cm-wiki.stanford.edu/wiki/MacTel_PlanetCCRMA) using 
>> rEFit.
>>
>> Everything went very smoothly until I installed PlanetCCRMA and tried to 
>> boot the RT kernel (2.6.24.3-1.rt1.2.fc8.ccrmart). I can't offer much 
>> detail about what's going on other that it doesn't even seem to begin to 
>> boot. After selecting Linux from the rEFit boot menu, it gets as far as
>>
>> Uncompressing Linux... Ok, booting the kernel.
>> i8042.c: No Controller found
>>
>> and then nothing. I let it sit there for about 10 minutes just to be 
>> sure. I have to hard reset after that, and I can't see anything recorded 
>> anywhere in /var/log. The stock F8 kernel boots just fine, although I 
>> haven't got audio working.
>>
>> any insights?
> 
> Hmmm, I remember this happening at some point but I can't remember the
> solution. Probably Carr (who's in the list) has better memory, he has
> been helping students do the install...
> 
> ...
> 
> [moments later] I think you have to add "nohz=off" in the kernel command
> line[*], we found that (one of several posted "solutions", others
> included "noapic" and "acpi=off") through google and that managed to get
> a particular laptop to be happy and boot. 
> 
> -- Fernando
> 
> [*] just edit it at boot time and then add it to /etc/grub/grub.conf
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> PlanetCCRMA mailing list
> PlanetCCRMA at ccrma.stanford.edu
> http://ccrma-mail.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/planetccrma