[syslinux] can pxe localboot report failure to bios

[Carl Karsten]

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> Carl Karsten wrote:
> 
>>  > Okay... ALL the pxelinux "localboot" arguments mean continue to the 
>> next boot device -- assuming the BIOS/PXE supports it (which a lot of 
>> them don't.) "localboot 0" is the normal mode; "localboot 4" and 
>> "localboot 5" are special-purpose boots.
>>
>>
>> On a laptop that is set to LAN, HD - it booted the HD.
>>
>> On a box set to Floppy, HD, booting EtherBoot floppy, I get
>> boot:
>> Booting from local disk
>> probing pci nic...
>> probing isa nic...
>> <sleep>
>>
>> and then it re-enters EtherBoot, but not from the start - it skips the 
>> "loading rom image...." and just displays
>> Boot from (N)etwork or (Q)uit.
>> and then boots from net.
>>
>> I am guessing this is an EtherBoot problem?
>>
> 
> No.  If you boot from a disk medium (floppy, USB key, hard disk) there 
> is no way to "return to the BIOS", so "localboot 0" is fundamentally 
> incapable of doing anything for you.  In other words, if you want to 
> boot to disk at this point, you have to use chain.c32.
> 
> Similarly with standard PXE stacks for older BIOSes.
> 

When it loops to:

Boot from (N)etwork or (Q)uit

If I hit Q it boots from the drive.  Any idea what it is doing?

I am pretty sure I can make a floppy that will timeout and boot the drive if I 
don't hit N, so I think that will take care of what I need.  things are getting 
"messy".  The goal here is Install Linux which will do tings for 20 min, then 
reboot the box and keep installing for another 30 min.  I don't want to be around 
for the reboot.  And I want to be able to document how to set this up - messy 
setup ends up with messy docs.  (i know none of this is your problem)

ck