[syslinux] hanging localboot

[Gene Cumm]

On Sat, Jun 4, 2011 at 04:04, Jim Cromie <jim.cromie at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ive got a soekris 4801 on which Ive used pxelinux...
> its bios is set to go to pxeboot 1st, then localboot.
>
> Ive got:
>
>    label bootlocal
>      MENU label ^9 Boot Local
>      localboot 0
>      # timeout 80
>      # TOTALTIMEOUT 9000
>
> but using hangs:
>
> Booting from local disk...
> PXE-M0F: Exiting MacPhyter PXE ROM.
>
> then nothing.
>
> the same compact flash image works fine when boot order is 80 1st,
> or when ethernet cable is unplugged and so pxeboot firmware falls back to 80
>
> reboot.c32 reboots successfully.
> Ive also tried localboot X, where X>0, no diff (I didnt think it would
> help, but..)
>
> In the past, I found that certain reboots (ie shutdown -r now, from
> running linux)
> would also hang, cuz the ethernet card stayed up on shutdown,
> eth0: remaining active for wake-on-lan
>
> and reboot wouldnt clean that up.  Those particular problems were solved by
> installing ethtool and disabling WOL in a shutdown script.
>
> Id like a fix that works without reliance on a proper shutdown of a
> properly booted kernel.
>
> this is on 4.05-pre1

As per NEWS, could you do two things:

1) Try 'LOCALBOOT -1'; some PCs have different results.
2) Try 4.03.
3) If this gives differing results, would it be possible to save the
results of dmidecode or sysdump (Mentioned in NEWS also)?  I'm not
sure if HPA is still interested in collecting these results.

See also http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Hardware_Compatibility#LOCALBOOT
for some other references.

-- 
-Gene