[syslinux] ISOLINUX boot problem: request for help

[Peter Bartke]

H. Peter Anvin schrieb am Thu, Jul 26, 2007 at 02:06:49PM -0700:
> Peter Bartke wrote:
> > 
> > I'm also suspicious of the BIOS of the ASUS P5GD2 board. 
> > This is the output of `lshw':
> >           description: BIOS
> >           vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
> >           physical id: 0
> >           version: 1005.009 (02/03/2005)
> >           size: 64KB
> >           capacity: 448KB
> >           capabilities: isa pci pnp apm upgrade shadowing escd cdboot
> > bootselect socketedrom edd int13floppy1200 int13floppy720
> > int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer
> > int10video acpi usb agp ls120boot zipboot biosbootspecification
> > 
> > The Kernel is 2.6.21.5. slax-6.0.0-rc5.iso with this kernel apparently 
> > boots for a lot of people.
> 
> The BIOS is almost certainly chief suspect #1.  There are BIOSes which
> have been known to be sensitive to the exact location to the kernel
> image on the CD -- why, I don't know (my best guess would involve
> inappropriate timeouts; CDs can take a long time seeking.)  That is part
> of why I recommend trying to force mkisofs to put the kernel and the
> isolinux file near the start of the disc.
> 
> > The first lines of the successful boot form harddisk are:
> > 
> > Jul 25 20:41:01 ravel kernel: Linux version 2.6.21.5-smp (root at midas)
> > (gcc version 4.1.2) #2 SMP Tue Jun 19 14:58:11 CDT 2007
> > Jul 25 20:41:01 ravel kernel: BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
> > Jul 25 20:41:01 ravel kernel: 127MB HIGHMEM available.
> > Jul 25 20:41:01 ravel kernel: 896MB LOWMEM available.
> > Jul 25 20:41:01 ravel kernel: found SMP MP-table at 000ff780
> > 
> > Could there lurk a memory fragmentation problem as in ancient ages?
> 
> No, that's a pretty typical readout for a 1 GB machine.
> 
> However, tweaking a mem= option might answer that for sure, e.g. mem=800M.

Sorry, this doesn't cure the problem. The pile of failing CDs grows ;-)
Very irritating that such a lot of CDs (SuSE, Slackware, ...) booted
without problems on this computer and this one fails.

Peter
> 
> 	-hpa
> 
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