Explicitly disable the VSX instruction for ppc64el

Bug #1454743 reported by Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre
12
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
grub2 (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Undecided
Unassigned
Trusty
Fix Released
High
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre

Bug Description

[Impact]
POWER7/POWER8 systems which have the VSX bit enabled by default may find themselves crashing with 'instruction exception' errors when booting.

[Test case]
- Install grub
- Boot the system

[Regression Potential]
VSX being disabled means another piece of software down the stack needs to re-enable it when necessary. This should be done by the kernel.

Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Trusty):
status: New → In Progress
importance: Undecided → High
Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu):
status: New → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) wrote :

This is already fixed since Utopic (the patch comes from there); we only need to SRU it to Trusty.

Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Trusty):
assignee: nobody → Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (mathieu-tl)
Revision history for this message
Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Chris J Arges (arges) wrote : Please test proposed package

Hello Mathieu, or anyone else affected,

Accepted grub2 into trusty-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.2 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Trusty):
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
tags: added: verification-needed
Revision history for this message
Paulo Flabiano Smorigo (pfsmorigo) wrote :

Tested using the new release (2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.2) and it worked fine.

tags: added: verification-done
removed: verification-needed
Revision history for this message
Chris J Arges (arges) wrote : Update Released

The verification of the Stable Release Update for grub2 has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package grub2 - 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.2

---------------
grub2 (2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.2) trusty-proposed; urgency=medium

  * debian/patches/install_powerpc_machtypes.patch: updated: do a better job
    at detecting machine types; so as to use the right utility when updating
    nvram for the boot-device. This also fixes adding a CHRP note on the
    chrp_ibm machines, which broke PowerVM mode. (LP: #1334793)
  * debian/patches/ppc64el-disable-vsx.patch: disable the VSX instruction,
    which is enabled by default on POWER7/8 cpu models, to avoid crashes due
    to instruction exceptions. The kernel will re-enable it when necessary.
    (LP: #1454743)
  * debian/patches/ieee1275-clear-reset.patch: clear the text attribute in
    the clear command. (LP: #1454764)

 -- Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre <email address hidden> Wed, 13 May 2015 12:30:05 -0400

Changed in grub2 (Ubuntu Trusty):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
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