[CentOS] CentOs 7 i386 & PAE Kernel

On 3/4/19 3:39 PM, Mike McTernan (wavemobile) wrote:
> Hi Gurus,
> 
> I've been playing with CentOS 7's AltArch i386 builds with some good results on one machine, but can't get it to boot properly on another with a newer Bay Trail CPU.  Previously CentOS 6 i386 worked on both, and that set a legacy I'd like to recreate...
> 
> I *think* the problem is that the 7 kernel is non-PAE, and that has some peculiar knock on effect that prevents some PCI devices being seen, notably the device with the rootfs.  CentOS 6 worked on both machines with the PAE kernel.
> 
> Looking around, I found the following repo: https://mirrors.dotsrc.org/centos-altarch/7/kernel/i386/
> 
> This carries 4.14 (long term support) based -PAE kernels (as well as non-PAE) which look to fix my problem.  However, I can't find any description of this repo or policy on how it is updated or the intended use.  Or why PAE kernels aren't provided as an option in the 'normal' i386 CentOS 7 builds.
> 
> If anyone could help explain this repo and the view on PAE for the AltArch i386 builds of CentOS 7, I would be really grateful as I can't find the info anywhere else!
> 

That directory (kernel/ under altarch) is basically for the armhfp main
kernel, but we are building also for aarch64, i386 and even x86_64.  Its
purpose (other than armhfp, where it is the main kernel) is mainly for
IoT type hardware (think hobby boards, embedded systems, etc that need
newer kernels for hardware support .. think things like this:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/solutions/iot.html

or

64 bit aarch64 bit type IoT boards, etc.

You certainly CAN use them on anything you want and it will be
maintained as it is the main kernel for armhfp.

There is also an experimental/ repo in altarch with is the NEXT kernel
for armhfp .. that one is currently 4.19.x. When we upgrade to CentOS
7.7.<DATE> (no idea when that will be, we obviously wait on Red Hat to
release RHEL 7.7 and then rebuild the source code) we will be moving to
the 4.19.x kernel in the kernel/ repo .. and  for the experimental/ repo
we will pick a newer LTS kernel from kernel.org to maintain in that repo.

Both of these branches / repos are NOT designed to run Enterprise type
workloads (that is why we have the main RH kernel from RHEL sources) ..
but, you can do whatever you want with them .. and we will be
maintaining them for major updates from kernel.org as required,
especially CVEs released from kernel.org.



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