[syslinux] PXELINUX LocalBoot 0 fail; hunting for bug

[Steve Brown]

On Wed, 11 Aug 2010, Gene Cumm wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 16:56, Gene Cumm <gene.cumm at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 20:36, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:
>>> On 08/07/2010 10:45 AM, Gene Cumm wrote:
>>>> Recently, I decided to pull out a new model laptop for testing related
>>>> to my job at work.  Dell Latitiude E6400, BIOS A14.  Normally I have
>>>> it set to boot CD, USB, Net, then HDD and noticed that with
>>>> PXELINUX-4.02 and 'LOCALBOOT 0', it hung on me before leaving the PXE
>>>> stack.  I then tried 3.86 and it worked.  4.00 and 4.01 both hung when
>>>> I tested them as well.  Changing to 'LOCALBOOT -1' or using 'chain.c32
>>>> hd0' both resolved this issue.
>>>>
>>>> At this time, I'm just trying to post to give people an FYI in case
>>>> they run into a similar situation and to say that I'm going to be
>>>> trying to hunt for where/how things are hanging.
>>>>
>>>> I still have to get another test environment configured to obtain the
>>>> exact displayed messages.
>>>>
>
> And to add even more fun: The tweak I did (using 'LOCALBOOT -1') fails
> on a Dell OptiPlex GX240, BIOS A05, 3c920 LoM (also referred to as a
> 3c905C in some places), MBA 4.31 PXE 2.41.  BIOS is latest and I
> became aware of the GX240 issue because I got a report from a
> co-worker about a group of machines running BIOS A02.

This brings back bad memories... I don't remember all the details, but 
one of the GX series had issues for us at UMBC that required back-revving 
the BIOS.

Steve Brown
Systems Administrator
UMBC Imaging Research Center
sbrown7 at umbc.edu