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

[Petro]

On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 04:28:24PM +0000, Terry Barnaby wrote:
> Hi Joseph,
> By the way I suspect that not many people have noticed the problem
> as:
> 1. It only occurs on SNMP systems.
> 2. It only occurs with an SNMP kernel, normal installation kernels are
> 	single processor.
> 3. It only occurs when the boot option apm=power-off is used.

    ITYM "SMP" systems. SNMP is a different beasty altogether, and isn't
    usually built into the kernel. 


> So is suspect that very few have noticed this ....
> 
> Terry
> 
> Terry Barnaby wrote:
> >Hi Josef,
> >
> >I have tried using lilo on the system and all is fine.
> >So the system boots fine with Grub and Lilo, but if I use
> >syslinux's pxeboot or isolinux the kernel displays the APM
> >error and will not power off correctly.
> >
> >So there appears to be something that syslinux does or does not
> >do compared with grub and lilo ....
> >
> >Terry
> >
> >Josef Siemes wrote:
> >
> >>Hi,
> >>
> >>Terry Barnaby <terry at beam.ltd.uk> schrieb am 07.01.04 15:12:09:
> >>
> >>>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.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Hmm. Grub does many things to the system (and I think it does way too 
> >>much for the
> >>purpose it's needed for ...), and I AFAIK it also fiddles around with 
> >>APM. Maybe it 'fixes' your bios to behave more sane to the kernel.
> >>
> >>Did you try lilo? It's similar to syslinux that it doesn't do too much 
> >>to the
> >>system, and definitely doesn't touch APM either.
> >>
> >>
> >>>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 ?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Not that I know. AFAIK the BIOS (and that's what syslinux uses) runs 
> >>on CPU 0,
> >>so there should be no problem with that.
> >>
> >>Since it seems to be a bios issue you could try to upgrade the bios to 
> >>the latest version, if you didn't do that already. Since vitrually all 
> >>installation CD's use syslinux
> >>(isolinux or syslinux itself) this should have happened to more people.
> >>
> >>hpa, any comments?
> >>
> >>Regards,
> >>
> >>Josef
> >>
> >>______________________________________________________________________________ 
> >>
> >>Nachrichten, Musik und Spiele schnell und einfach per Quickstart im 
> >>WEB.DE Screensaver - Gratis downloaden: 
> >>http://screensaver.web.de/?mc=021110
> >>
> >
> 
> -- 
> 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 !"
> 
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Petro at corp.vendio.com                           ccpetro at vtext.com [sms] 
Unix Administrator                           2766480 at skytel.com [pager] 
Vendio Service Inc.                                  (650) 793-1650 [cell]