[syslinux] [syslinux:master] efi/pxe: Reuse handle

Ady ady-sf at hotmail.com
Fri Aug 14 03:47:12 PDT 2015


> What about to your HP mail?  I'd definitely advise the latest as I merged
> some commits this weekend.
> 
> --Gene
 
Hmm... Shamelessly, and off-topic, but not _that_ much... :)

For several months we have seen reports (of different matters) here in 
the Syslinux Mailing List in which some HP model(s) have been having 
problems network-booting (in UEFI mode; I don't recall whether there 
were also reports using BIOS/CSM mode).

Among the several reports involving HP hardware, I happen to remember 
at least one case of those, brought up by Patrick, if I am not 
mistaken, (and somewhat reported to HP too). Although updates to the 
UEFI firmware in that case were published and available from HP, the 
updates where *only* available for "Windows OS", in spite of having 
other categories of downloads for the same model, such as "independent 
(of OS)" and "Linux" - as if the firmware would be dependent on OS :O.

At the time, my assumption (which I posted in the mailing list too) was 
that HP was/is providing a way to update the firmware from a Windows OS 
only (and probably - my assumption continues - HP tests and supports 
these updates under Windows environments *only*).

In the HP website, when selecting the "Linux" category of downloads for 
the HP model in that particular case, one firmware update was available 
too, but it happens to be old, whereas several updates are available 
through the "Windows OS" category, with more-than-a-few "fixed" items 
in the changelog history.

Why is this relevant? Because the HP model was reported to be failing 
to network-boot syslinux.efi -> Linux (IIRC), and the chances that a 
firmware update could solve the problem in that case were/are not 
discarded at all.

It could be beneficial to see HP updating the firmware for 
"non-Windows" users too (i.e. taking care of the problems, testing and 
publishing the updates for these "other" users / cases).

Who knows, maybe we could even see some bugs in Syslinux solved, 
specific hardware tested, and firmware updates with relevant patches 
published (for all).

Or, maybe this will be left here as a random rant, with no positive 
consequences :(.

Regards,
Ady.

PS: If I happen to be misremembering (some) details of the particular 
case (which is possible), please forgive me; I have not looked up the 
particular emails, which could help refresh my imperfect memory.
 
 
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