Bug#610490: grub-ieee1275: runs out of memory on UltraSPARC 10

[Axel Beckert]

Package: grub-ieee1275
Version: 1.99~rc1-1
Severity: important

This is basically the follow-up bug to http://bugs.debian.org/560823

When booting grub, before the menu is displayed, it runs out of memory
(even though my UltraSparc has 1 GB of RAM) and then causes (probably as
follow-up error) an illegal instruction.

Manually transcribed output:

GRUB Loading kernel..
Welcome to GRUB!

Can't read disk label.
Can't open disk label package
Can't read disk label.
Can't open disk label package
Can't read disk label.
Can't open disk label package
Can't read disk label.
Can't open disk label package
Can't read disk label.
Can't open disk label package
Can't read disk label.
Can't open disk label package
Can't read disk label.
Can't open disk label package
Can't read disk label.
Can't open disk label package
error: out of memory.
Illegal Instruction
ok 

On my friend's UltraSPARC 10 (with a different graphics adapter, 512 MB)
the "Can't read disk label. // Can't open disk label package" message
combo shows up only four times compared to eight times on my box. I
somehow suspect the amount of RAM (1 GB and 512 MB) to correlate with
the number of error messages (8 and 4) before the out of memory
condition.

I got the machine back to boot properly by using Vladimir's installation
of upstream's trunk version in /usr/local/. But also that version runs
into this out of memory condition if I use the grub.cfg generated from
the Debian package. Only if I use the hinting feature (which currently
is only in trunk IIRC) to direct grub more quickly towards the proper
root device, then it does not run into this out of memory and
boots the system.

I attached both grub.cfg files, the one generated with the debian
package's tools and the one generated with the trunk version of
upstream's tools.

-- Package-specific info:
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-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0
Architecture: sparc (sparc64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.32-5-sparc64
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages grub-ieee1275 depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]        1.5.38      Debian configuration management sy
ii  grub-common                  1.99~rc1-1  GRand Unified Bootloader, version 
ii  libc6                        2.11.2-8    Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib
ii  libdevmapper1.02.1           2:1.02.48-4 The Linux Kernel Device Mapper use
ii  ucf                          3.0025+nmu1 Update Configuration File: preserv

grub-ieee1275 recommends no packages.

Versions of packages grub-ieee1275 suggests:
ii  os-prober                     1.42       utility to detect other OSes on a 

-- debconf information:
  grub2/kfreebsd_cmdline:
* grub2/device_map_regenerated:
* grub2/linux_cmdline:
  grub2/kfreebsd_cmdline_default: quiet
* grub2/linux_cmdline_default: