[syslinux] Memdisk and Grub

[H. Peter Anvin]

Christian Kalkhoff wrote:
> Dear Egan,
> 
> i used latest CVS version. In this version it is not a problem to run
> grub. But the started Linux operating system (Redhat 7.2 boot disk)
> freezes system. The problem with .92 also appeared during my testing.
> 
> There is no problem using diskemu (part of bootscriptor beta) which
> doesn't read disk to memory. Instead it is reading disk bytewise. The
> reason I wanted to use memdisk was the lack of proper 2.88 floppy image
> emulation in conjunction with grub.
> 
> In the meanwhile i made initrd of redhat boot disk smaller (deleted some
> kernel modules) and now everything fit on a 1.44 disk image which i can
> use with diskemu.
> 
> I guess the problem with memdisk is either the kernel AND the initrd. I
> can boot a DOS boot disk (not tested with 386 extension now) from grub,
> but since linux only uses extended mem i think there is kind of
> collision with the disk remaining in RAM.
> 

Given GRUBs history of, quite frankly, unbelievably broken memory
management, I wouldn't be one bit surprised to find this.

	-hpa