[syslinux] syslinux / antique computers

[Blaauw,Bernd B.]

Hi,

is there an easy way to circumvent the SYSLINUX novice protection thing?
intended users don't know about CTRL key to circumvent it.
I'm trying to make a generic bootdisk for systems of 8086 - Pentium4.
however the bootdisk is slow, so I'd like to use Syslinux + Memdisk to load a diskette image.

then the text displayed to user will be:

1) FreeDOS bootdisk (accelerated, 386 computer minimum)
2) FreeDOS bootdisk

#load 360KB diskette image from the bootfloppy into RAM - speedup!!!
label 1
kernel memdisk
append initrd=fdboot.img

label 2
kernel freedos.bss

the novice protection will warn too early.
A: is accessed a lot, so a speedup by using Memdisk is welcome. However the SYSLINUX warning won't let the bootdisk boot on a 8086/80286 system I guess.

before you ask.. no decent Ramdisk program for FreeDOS yet :(

1.44MB diskette and the 360KB diskette image will have same contents
(except for the syslinux files ofcourse), but a Memdisk image is faster.

thanks for any feedback,

Bernd

 
++++ NOVICE PROTECTION ++++

SYSLINUX will attempt to detect if the user is trying to boot on a 286
or lower class machine, or a machine with less than 608K of low ("DOS")
RAM (which means the Linux boot sequence cannot complete).  If so, a
message is displayed and the boot sequence aborted.  Holding down the
Ctrl key while booting disables this feature.