Bug#760142: systemd: Assertions from systemd-logind on powerpc during login, with continuing loop

[Chris Tillman]

Yes, it is installed on a USB hard disk. I mentioned it in the first
bug report I filed, but that one was rejected because I was
inadvertantly booting with the wrong kernel, and I forgot to mention
it in the second version. And yes, I think the timing issue could be
getting exacerbated because of the slowness of USB.

I'm pretty sure the PPC G4 has USB1.1, and I think maybe the little
USB hard disk interface box I'm using does too. They are both like
2003 vintage.

The speed doesn't matter much to me, as I'm only using the machine to
do testing for Debian, not to actually do work on. I installed Wheezy
on the actual hard disk for the machine, and I didn't want to disturb
that ... hence why I installed on the USB disk instead.

If testing _did_ work, I would put together a new release of my
Debian-imac collection on Sourceforge with it, and update the actual
hard disk. My first forays a few months back with jessie on this
machine were complete flops, so I can see the progress that's been
made in that time.

Chris

On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 8:12 PM, Simon McVittie <smcv at debian.org> wrote:
> Chris, your Debian root filesystem appears to be on a USB-attached disk
> (device ID 067b:2507, which according to
> <https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=58737> seems to be a
> "Prolific Technology, Inc. PL2507 Hi-speed USB to IDE bridge
> controller"). Please confirm whether this is the case? (Relevant logs
> below.)
>
> This is something that *should* work, but it's an unusual enough
> configuration that it would have been helpful to mention it, and if (as
> I suspect) there are timeout issues here, USB is probably going to hurt
> performance enough to matter - it looks as though you're not just on a
> system with a slow CPU, you're also on a system with a slow connection
> to its disk.
>
> Further, it looks as though your USB disk is connected at "full speed"
> rather than at "high speed". That sounds as though it ought to be a good
> thing, but it isn't: confusingly, the USB Implementers Forum defines
> "full speed" to be the full speed of USB 1 (12 Mbit/s), whereas "high
> speed" is the enhanced signalling rate from USB 2 (480 Mbit/s). A disk
> on a 12 Mbit/s bus is never going to be very fast. If this machine has
> USB 2, check that you are not using a USB 1 hub to connect the disk. If
> it does not, consider adding USB 2 via a PCI or Cardbus expansion card,
> or using an internal disk or Firewire instead.
>
> Thanks,
>     S
>
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel: usb 1-1: new full-speed USB device number
> 2 using ohci-pci
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel: usb 1-1: New USB device found,
> idVendor=067b, idProduct=2507
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel: usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1,
> Product=2, SerialNumber=3
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel: usb 1-1: Product: Mass Storage Device
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel: usb 1-1: Manufacturer: Prolific
> Technology Inc.
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel: usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 00
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel: usb-storage 1-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage
> device detected
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel: usb-storage 1-1:1.0: Quirks match for vid
> 067b pid 2507: 10
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel: scsi3 : usb-storage 1-1:1.0
> ...
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel: scsi 3:0:0:0: Direct-Access     IC25N060
> ATMR04-0         MO3O PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
> ...
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel: sd 3:0:0:0: [sdb] 117210239 512-byte
> logical blocks: (60.0 GB/55.8 GiB)
> ...
> Aug 31 09:07:57 debian kernel:  sdb: [mac] sdb1 sdb2 sdb3 sdb4 sdb5 sdb6
> sdb7 sdb8 sdb9 sdb10 sdb11 sdb12 sdb13 sdb14
> ...
> Aug 31 09:08:08 debian systemd[1]: Starting Remount Root and Kernel File
> Systems...
> Aug 31 09:08:08 debian systemd[1]: Starting Sound Card.
> Aug 31 09:08:08 debian systemd[1]: Reached target Sound Card.
> Aug 31 09:08:08 debian kernel: EXT4-fs (sdb12): re-mounted. Opts:
> errors=remount-ro
> Aug 31 09:08:09 debian systemd[1]: Started Remount Root and Kernel File
> Systems.
>



-- 
Chris Tillman
Developer