[LinuxPPS] PPS/ntpd fails on fresh startup

[William S. Brasher]

On Tue, 14 Oct 2008, Rodolfo Giometti wrote:

> On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 03:47:23PM +0200, Luca Bertagnolio wrote:
> > Rodolfo, when you have a minute can you comment on my issue?
> 
> Hi. If you wish I replay sooner, please put my e-mail address in
> Cc. :)
> 
> > Why would LinuxPPS fail at the first startup, and work the second time?
> 


I have the same problem starting ntp:  it fails to start the first time 
after booting the system.  The reason, for me, has been ppsldisc:

tara: # ppstest /dev/pps0 
trying PPS source "/dev/pps0"
found PPS source "/dev/pps0"
ok, found 1 source(s), now start fetching data...
time_pps_fetch() error -1 (Connection timed out)
time_pps_fetch() error -1 (Connection timed out)
^C


Since it starts on the second try, I've been logging in and manually 
running the startup script after the machine boots.  I suspect the problem 
is somewhere in the swamp called udev and the time required for a kernel 
process to start, but so far I haven't found a fix.

For information, I am using a via epia mini-itx board, 533 Mhz cpu, and 
133 Mhz fsb.