Sculpt Hanging On New ThinkPad

[John J. Karcher]

On 9/20/19 2:55 AM, Norman Feske wrote:
> Hi John,
> 
>> The system boots into Leitzentrale, with the Manager window, log area,
>> and even component graph all displaying.  But then it freezes, not
>> accepting keyboard or mouse input.
>>
>> (It may be related to the USB controller, because 1) the USB stick drive
>> either shows a size of 0 bytes or doesn't display at all, and 2) moving
>> the mouse while Genode is starting seems to cause the system to freeze
>> before Leitzentrale is displayed.)
> 
> Since you see the GUI, the input drivers (both USB HID and PS/2) have
> come up, which is promising.

That's interesting - could the USB driver be initialized, but crash on 
an interrupt (or something like that)?

> Just to double check that the issue is not a mundane BIOS setting, can
> you please try the following?
> 
> - Press [F12] to toggle the leitzentrale
>    (I guess, you have already done so)
> 
> - The BIOS may be configured to swap the layers of the F-keys and
>    feature keys (volume etc.).
>    Can you try pressing [Fn] + [F12]?
> 
> - The BIOS may be configured to swap [Fn] and [Ctrl].
>    Can you try pressing [Ctrl] + [F12]?
> 
> - Have you tried to connect a USB keyboard and press [F12] there?
> 
> - Can you move the mouse pointer with the trackpoint?
> 
> - Can you move the mouse pointer with the track pad?
> 
> - Can you move the mouse pointer with an external USB mouse?
> 
> - The trackpoint and trackpad can be configured (i.e., disabled)
>    in the BIOS. Can you please check those settings?
> 
> - On some Thinkpads, I have experienced trouble with the battery-saving
>    settings in the BIOS (one can set the policy for AC and battery
>    independently). It might be worthwhile to try setting "maximize
>    performance" for both settings.

I tried most of those already, and the remainder just now. 
Unfortunately all without success.

For good measure, I also built an image using "KERNEL=hw", which ran at 
about 1% of the speed of Nova, but arrived at exactly the same result 
(including the same log messages and locking up before Leitzentrale if I 
moved the pointer while booting).

>> Does anyone have any thoughts on this?  Is there a diagnostic tool I can
>> run to give more useful info?
> 
> Given that you have a machine supported by Sculpt available, you may
> give Sculpt's report_dump package a try, which periodically copies the
> content of Sculpt's report file system to the default file system.

[ snip - instructions for creating "hardware-probing instrument" image ]

> The snapshots not only contain all log messages (/report/log) but also
> the reports generated by various components of the drivers subsystem and
> any other deployed components. For example, with acpica present in the
> deploy configuration, the battery state is captured as well.

I should have thought of that myself.  In any case, I just tried it, but 
no data was written.  (The USB drive is listed as "0 bytes" in the 
Manager panel, so I guess this is not surprising.)

There are only about a dozen lines in the Log panel (it varies a little 
each time), and nothing that seems relevant.

This just goes to show how dependent we are on USB - I can't think of a 
way to get data on or off this machine without it.  (No optical drive, 
and I didn't buy the dongle for the "mini-ethernet" port.)

It's a little strange that it boots off the USB stick all the way 
through displaying the component graph.  I'm assuming it uses the BIOS 
up to a certain point, then hands control over to the Genode drivers.

Could we rig up an image that disables the USB driver (or at least the 
USB storage driver), but logs some diagnostic info (to the screen) about 
the hardware?

I do have a USB ethernet card, so I could try a network boot, if the 
main USB driver is not the problem.

>> I will be happy to give more details on the hardware in the appropriate
>> forum.  Should I open a GitHub issue?
> 
> The mailing list is perfectly fine.

Here is a review that goes into some detail about the machine:

 
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-L380-Yoga-i5-8250U-FHD-Convertible-Review.295936.0.html

Let me know if there's anything else I can try.

  Thanks!

   John J. Karcher
   devuser at alternateapproach.com