[syslinux] Dell Optiplex GX620 keyboard problem

[Jeffrey Hutzelman]

--On Monday, January 26, 2009 09:36:25 AM -0500 Gene Cumm 
<gene.cumm at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 6:40 AM, JOURDAIN Joris 031398 NEURONES
> <joris.jourdain at cea.fr> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm interrested in testing any possible workaroud for the Dell
>> Optiplex GX620 keyboard problem, as I just can't downgrade the BIOS
>> version on each and every Gx620 I have to (re)install ! (Plus I can't
>> find a link to download the old A10 BIOS itself.)
>>
>
> This issue only applies to certain versions of the Syslinux project.
> My first suggestion is to upgrade to one of the latest versions
> (preferably the latest) of Syslinux (be it SYSLINUX, PXELINUX,
> ISOLINUX and/or EXTLINUX) first to see if it resolves it (as it
> should).  Between 3.53 and 3.61, the USB-only keyboard on a GX620 with
> BIOS A11 will become unusable.

Only if you start a com32 program or something that switches to protected 
mode such as memdisk.

> Downloading A10 is still possible.  You can either proceed directly to
> browsing the FTP server at Dell (either via HTTP or FTP) or click the
> link to "Other Versions" after getting to the info page for A11.

It's also possible to boot and install this BIOS using PXELINUX, even if 
you are currently running BIOS A11.  In fact, part of the original purpose 
of bioschk.asm(*) was to detect this version and request permission to 
downgrade before starting the menu system.  We do this using configuration 
similar to the following:


  default magic
  prompt 0
  label magic
    menu hide
    kernel bioschk.cbt
    append check.bc
  ...
  label bios_gx620_a10
    menu hide
    kernel memdisk
    append safeint initrd=::bios/gx620a10.img

You also need to provide
  - bioschk.cbt, assembled from bioschk.asm
  - check.bc, containing something like the example script contained
    in the comments near the end of bisochk.asm
  - nomenu.cfg, which is a variation on your PXELINUX config that
    is usable without the menu system.  The example script will tell
    PXELINUX to switch to this config when it detects that it is not
    safe to start com32 programs (if running com32 programs _is_ safe,
    the script will start menu.c32 with the original config.
  - memdisk
  - bios/gx620a10.img, containing a bootable floppy with the Dell BIOS
    installer (GX620A10.EXE).  For this to work without requiring user
    input (which will be impossible once memdisk starts), it must have
    an AUTOEXEC.BAT file containing the line 'GX620A10 -nopause'.
    Remember that AUTOEXEC.BAT must have DOS newlines (CRLF).

-- Jeffrey T. Hutzelman (N3NHS) <jhutz+ at cmu.edu>
   Carnegie Mellon University - Pittsburgh, PA


(*) Posted by me to this list about a year ago.  Google for "syslinux 
bioschk" and my message is the third or fourth down in the first match.