[syslinux] boot Soekris 4801 with EXTLINUX

[Jim Cromie]

Johan Linner wrote:

> H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>
>> The whole thing sounds much more like *several* BIOS bugs than 
>> anything.   One of the bugs seems to be that EDD exists, but doesn't 
>> work right...
>>
>>     -hpa
>>
> The Soekris net4801 BIOS handles the Compaq Flash card (in my case a 
> Sandisk 512Mb) as a LBA disc.
> Could this have anything to do with the EXTLINUX boot problem (I guess 
> the net4801 BIOS does some sort of emulation...)?
> Changing the size in cache.inc from 65536 to 4096 does not work for me.
>
> /Johan Linnér


theres a new bios out for soekris, 1.28. 
Ive not tried it, nor does changelog say anything specific wrt bios 
bugs, but..
BTW, I can confirm your report - I also tried extlinux on my soekris,
got same early hang

comBIOS vers 1.28

  * added "bootdrive" setting in monitor
    "set bootdrive=80 81 F0", try booting hd0, hd1, net in sequence,
     (default setting), up to 4 drives.
  * added "fastboot" setting in monitor
    "set fastboot=disabled | enabled", cut POST to about 2 seconds.
    warning: you then need to be quick with ctrl-P to enter the monitor.
  * fixed 4 sec wait with some CompactFlash modules on net4801 boards
  * fixed memory detect issue on some net48xx boards