[syslinux] syslinux 4.02 hangs at "boot:"

[Gene Cumm]

On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 06:25, Alex Zeffertt <alex.zeffertt at eu.citrix.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a machine that won't boot syslinux 4.02 but will boot syslinux
> 3.53.  We've installed syslinux 4.02 on a number of machines but only
> this one has a problem.
>
> The problem is that the machine hangs entirely after printing "boot:" on
> the tty.  The stanza being booted in /boot/extlinux.conf is:
>
>  label xe
>  # XenServer
>  kernel mboot.c32
>  append /boot/xen.gz dom0_mem=752M lowmem_emergency_pool=1M
> crashkernel=64M at 32M console= vga=mode-0x0311 --- /boot/vmlinuz-2.6-xen
> root=LABEL=root-ldndebvr ro xencons=hvc console=hvc0 console=tty0 quiet
> vga=785 splash --- /boot/initrd-2.6-xen.img

1) There's some global directives that have relevance.  I'd suggest
posting your entire config.

2) For testing, remove the command line option "quiet" as this will
change the behavior of any Syslinux variant.  It's possible that it's
not hanging at the "boot: " prompt but after it tries to run
mboot.c32.

3) Have you tried 4.03 or 4.04-pre5?  If not, I'd suggest trying them
in this order after removing "quiet" and testing 4.02 without "quiet".

4) Do you have any machines that are identical to this machine that
have differing success?  If so, I'd compare BIOS versions.  I had one
machine that actually caused more issues with a BIOS upgrade as there
was a new memory hole around 32-64MiB.  I know that for Linux kernels,
linux.c32 has the new "loader" (I know there's a better word but can't
remember it; basically how it loads files into memory in order to work
around the memory holes) but I don't know what strategy mboot.c32
uses.

-- 
-Gene

> and all the files in /boot definitely exist because the installation was
> done exactly the same way as on the machines that worked.
>
> The machine itself has the following features:
>
>  CPU: Socket count: 2
>  CPU: Core count: 4
>  CPU: Logical CPU count: 4
>  CPU: Vendor: AuthenticAMD
>  CPU: Speed: 2593.512MHz
>  CPU: Model name: Dual-Core AMD Opteron(tm) Processor 2218
>  CPU: Family - 15, Model - 65, Stepping - 2
>  CPU: Flags: fpu de tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr mca cmov pat clflush
> mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt 3dnowext 3dnow pni
> hypervisor cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy
>  CPU: Features: 00002001-178bfbff-0000001f-ebd3fbff
>  CPU: Features Maskable: no
>  Memory: 4G
>  Disks: 1
>  Disk 1: 120G
>  NICs: 3
>  NIC 1: 00:04.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82557/8/9/0/1
> Ethernet Pro 100 (rev 10)
>  NIC 2: 04:04.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme
> BCM5780 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03)
>  NIC 3: 04:04.1 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme
> BCM5780 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03)
>  NICs on NPRI: 1
>  Resource string:
> memory=4G/sockets=2/cores=4/cpus=4/disks=1/disk1=120G/NPRI=1
>
>
> Does anybody have any ideas what could be causing this problem?  If so
> I'd really appreciate hearing them.