[syslinux] [Bug]: Extlinux needs 1 minute before boot menu is shown

[Martin Stolpe]

On Saturday 28 August 2010 00:01:47 Gene Cumm wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 27, 2010 at 06:13, Martin Stolpe
> 
> <berti.boeller at googlemail.com> wrote:
> 1) What version of the Syslinux package are you using?  Are you using
> the official version?  Have you tried this with the latest official
> version (4.02; which should be ready to go from the tar/zip file)?

I'm using 4.02 from the official repositories: 
http://www.archlinux.org/packages/extra/i686/syslinux/

> 2) You should use the UI directive for vesamenu.c32.  This allows you
> to set a different default for the menu (unless overridden with MENU
> DEFAULT).
I've tried it with the UI directive and without vesamenu.c32/menu.c32 it still 
the same. Here's is my complete extlinux.conf which I currently use to boot:
  # UI vesamenu.c32
  DEFAULT arch_custom
  # PROMPT 0
  # MENU TITLE Arch Linux
  # MENU BACKGROUND splash.png
  # TIMEOUT 50

  # MENU WIDTH 78
  # MENU MARGIN 4
  # MENU ROWS 5
  # MENU VSHIFT 10
  # MENU TIMEOUTROW 13
  # MENU TABMSGROW 11
  # MENU CMDLINEROW 11
  # MENU HELPMSGROW 16
  # MENU HELPMSGENDROW 29

  # Refer to http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Doc/menu

  # MENU COLOR border       30;44   #40ffffff #a0000000 std
  # MENU COLOR title        1;36;44 #9033ccff #a0000000 std
  # MENU COLOR sel          7;37;40 #e0ffffff #20ffffff all
  # MENU COLOR unsel        37;44   #50ffffff #a0000000 std
  # MENU COLOR help         37;40   #c0ffffff #a0000000 std
  # MENU COLOR timeout_msg  37;40   #80ffffff #00000000 std
  # MENU COLOR timeout      1;37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std
  # MENU COLOR msg07        37;40   #90ffffff #a0000000 std
  # MENU COLOR tabmsg       31;40   #30ffffff #00000000 std

  LABEL arch
  #   MENU LABEL Boot Arch Linux (i686)
    KERNEL vmlinuz26
    APPEND initrd=kernel26.img root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/0ff4c04f-c05c-4662-
b648-06f05b0ead32 ro resume=swap:/dev/disk/by-
uuid/73ab1690-3e03-4385-80d1-7c05f507c509

  LABEL arch_custom
  #   MENU LABEL Boot Arch Linux (custom kernel)
    KERNEL vmlinuz26-kms
    APPEND initrd=kernel26-kms.img root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/0ff4c04f-c05c-4662-
b648-06f05b0ead32 ro resume=swap:/dev/disk/by-
uuid/73ab1690-3e03-4385-80d1-7c05f507c509

  LABEL windows
  #   MENU LABEL Windows
    KERNEL chain.c32
    APPEND hd1 2

  # http://www.memtest.org/
  LABEL memtest
  #   MENU LABEL Run Memtest86+ (RAM test)
    KERNEL memtest86+/memtest.bin

  # http://www.vortex.prodigynet.co.uk/x86test/
  #LABEL x86test
  #MENU LABEL Run x86test (CPU test)
  #KERNEL /boot/x86test

  LABEL reboot
  #   MENU LABEL Reboot
    KERNEL reboot.c32

  # ONTIMEOUT arch_custom

> 
> 3) Have you tried without vesamenu.c32 or your background?  It's
> possible that disk I/O, VESA initialization and/or decoding of
> splash.png is extremely slow.  I'd suspect one of these is the
> culprit.
See above

> Nice, clean and unique labels.  That's always a good sign.  "# " for
> comments.  Also nice.  I would also assume that it's just email
> wrapping the above lines (and each append is really only 1 long line
> in the config file).
Yes, your assumption is right. The append lines are only 1 long line in my 
config.

Thanks for your feedback. To sum up: although I'm not using any graphical menu 
to boot there's still the 1 minute delay before extlinux continues to boot.

Greetings,
Martin