[syslinux] extlinux 3.20-pre8 notes

[H. Peter Anvin]

Jim Cromie wrote:
> hi Peter, everyone,
> 
> I recently installed extlinux on my CF drive.
> after a few botches, it works, with menu.c32 too.
> Heres a few notes/observations:
> 
> - menuing seems pretty sensitive to presence of tabs in extlinux.conf,
> unlike with pxelinux.cfg/default,  Is this an oversight,
> or something Im misremembering ?
> 

Uhm, neither should be.  They're using exactly the same parsing code. 
Both of them simply consider any character <= 0x20 as whitespace.

> - extlinux doesnt have the timeout after menu-choice.
> if I dont choose, it times out and picks the 1st LABEL,
> but if I choose another and dont hit return, it just sits there.

The menu code is exactly the same one as in pxelinux, and it should 
definitely have a backup timeout.  I could see there being an issue with 
no timeouts working at all, but not if there is something else going on.

> - what does this mean ?
> EXT2-fs error (device hda1): ext2_free_blocks: bit already cleared for
> block 430629
> EXT2-fs error (device hda1): ext2_free_blocks: bit already cleared for
> block 430630
> EXT2-fs error (device hda1): ext2_free_blocks: bit already cleared for
> block 430631
> EXT2-fs error (device hda1): ext2_free_blocks: bit already cleared for
> block 430632
> A few hrs later, I dont remember the circumstances,

It means your filesystem is corrupt (and in a way which extlinux 
couldn't have done...)

> but I think it was while running linux, having just run 'extlinux -i ..'
> 
> - rerunning extlinux -i or -U have both installed an apparently old copy 
> of extlinux.sys into the directory above where I specified - this is in
> addition to an uptodate copy in the right directory.  I deleted it after 
> the install, and it reappeared after the update ?!?!
> 
> 
> cd ~/syslinux/syslinux-3.20-pre8/extlinux
> #  ./extlinux -U /mnt/flash/boot/extlinux
> /mnt/flash/boot/extlinux is device /dev/hda1
> 
> soekris:/mnt/flash/boot# ll extlinux
> total 20
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1789 May  5 08:42 extlinux.conf
> -r--r--r-- 1 root root 9740 May  5 09:03 extlinux.sys
> soekris:/mnt/flash/boot# ll extlinux.sys
> -r--r--r-- 1 root root 9320 May 28  2005 extlinux.sys
> 

All this indicates some serious weirdness in your filesystem... not that 
I have a good explanation for it, but it is definitely bizarre.

> 
> FYI, heres what the current boot process looks like,
> it goes to PXE 1st cuz I set the bios that way.
> 
> 
> comBIOS ver. 1.28  20050529  Copyright (C) 2000-2005 Soekris Engineering.
> 
> net4801
> 
> 0128 Mbyte Memory                        CPU Geode 266 Mhz
> 
> Pri Mas  SanDisk SDCFB-512               LBA 993-16-63  500 Mbyte
> 
>   Seconds to automatic boot.   Press Ctrl-P for entering Monitor.
> 
> NSC DP83815/DP83816 Fast Ethernet UNDI, v1.03
> Copyright (C) 2002, 2003 National Semiconductor Corporation
> All rights reserved.
> 
> Pre-boot eXecution Environment  PXE-2.0 (build 082)
> Copyright (C) 1997-2000  Intel Corporation
> 
> PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
> PXE-M0F: Exiting MacPhyter PXE ROM.
> 
> EXTLINUX 3.20 3.20-pre8 EBIOS Copyright (C) 1994-2005 H. Peter Anvin
> 
> EXTLINUX 3.20 3.20-pre8  Copyright (C) 1994-2005 H. Peter Anvin
> Unknown keyword in extlinux.conf.
> Unknown keyword in extlinux.conf.
> .
> No LABEL entries found in configuration file!
>                                             boot:
> .
> No LABEL entries found in configuration file!
>                                             boot:
> .
> 
> 
> 
> Ive fixed the reported problem, but a line-number would be handy, if
> possible/easy.
> (its the dot after ^g in the following stanza)

Is that a <ctrl-G> or a caret followed by g?

It shouldn't break the line there, so something is weird.

> LABEL 17rc1-mm1-hrt-clksrc
>  MENU LABEL    ^g.  hrt-clksrc
>  KERNEL        /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.17-rc1-mm1-hrt-clksrc-sk
>  APPEND        console=ttyS0,115200n81 root=/dev/hda1

	-hpa