[syslinux] pxelinux bug's

[H. Peter Anvin]

Iouri Kharon wrote:
> Hello Peter,
> 
> The attached patch contains three small (although 2 of them are
> fundamental :) fixes for pxelinux
> 
> 1. Alignment error when more than one initramfs are loaded using initrd
>    - the alignment of the last disk is discarded in calculations but is
>    ALWAYS present when the loading procedure is called. As a result - the
>    second image (cpio) is not recognized.

Ouch.

> 2. On some platforms (vmware for example :), READING from the video memory
>    in the 32bit mode is impossible (causes an exeption). Taking in to account
>    that the scroll function in ilinux/arch/i386/boot/compressed/misc.c
>    works using a memcpy of the video memory, when the linux bootsector is given
>    control and the cursor is at the end of the screen (-1-2 lines) an exception is
>    arisen and in the presence of it's handler in the bootloader the system halts.
>    Both lilo and grub handle this situation - the cursor is always somewhere at the
>    middle of the screen when the control is given to the linux bootsector.
>    When using pxelinux taking in to account that the PXE bios prints out the
>    presence of the second initramfs which causes the screen to scroll and the bug
>    to appear :)
>    A very simple solution - the screen is cleared before giving control to the
>    linux bootsector (in the patch).

This is a Vmware bug.  It may need reworking in Linux, I don't know, but
I'm a bit reluctant to simply clear the screen in syslinux.

What version(s) of Vmware has this cockup in it?

> 3. If more than one initramfs are loaded then before every "Loading..."
>    message (but the first) an extra new line is added. A small thingy but
>    anyway :)

That should be fixed, though.

In the future, it would be better to get this as individual patches
rather than all baked together.

	-hpa