[syslinux] Problem with Syslinux 2.07 and APM on SMP system

[Terry Barnaby]

Hi Josef,

Thanks for the response.

The system boots fine using the standard Grub boot loader which loads
exactly the same kernel and initial RAM disk and APM works fine when
booted using Grub.

So there must be some difference between the way syslinux (pxe and iso)
boots Linux and Grub boots Linux that causes the failier.

The code in the Linux kernal that prints the error message is attempting
to make sure the kernel is running on processor 0 as there are problems
with some BIOSes when other CPU's attempt to access the APM BIOS functions.
Could syslinux (pxe and iso) be booting using CPU 1 rather than CPU 0 ?

Terry


Josef Siemes wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Terry Barnaby <terry1 at beam.ltd.uk> schrieb am 07.01.04 11:29:20:
> 
>>We have a problem with Syslinux 2.07 and APM on an SMP system.
>>When either network booting with pxelinux.0 or CDROM booting
>>with isolinux we get a kernel error message:
> 
> [..]
> 
>>The system runs fine but will not power off.
>>If the system boots from the hard disk using grub all is fine.
>>
>>The kernel boot line is:
>>	append ro ramdisk_size=6000 initrd=beamsys/beamsys-initrd apm=power-off
>>
>>The OS is Redhat Linux 9 with kernel 2.4.20-24.9smp
>>The hardware is a Supermicro 6023P-i dual Xeon server.
> 
> 
> you don't have any problem with pxe/syslinux, since your kernel already booted and
> took over complete control on the system. Also syslinux doesn't do anything
> in regard to APM.
> 
> So maybe your system doesn't have any apm bios (I've seen some laptops that
> only have ACPI, and no APM any more), or has a buggy bios. Complain to your
> vendor, or try using ACPI and see if this works better.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Josef
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________________
> Erdbeben im Iran: Zehntausende Kinder brauchen Hilfe. UNICEF hilft den
> Kindern - helfen Sie mit! https://www.unicef.de/spe/spe_03.php
> 

-- 
Dr Terry Barnaby                     BEAM Ltd
Phone: +44 1454 324512               Northavon Business Center, Dean Rd
Fax:   +44 1454 313172               Yate, Bristol, BS37 5NH, UK
Email: terry at beam.ltd.uk             Web: www.beam.ltd.uk
BEAM for: Visually Impaired X-Terminals, Parallel Processing, Software
                       "Tandems are twice the fun !"