[syslinux] Loading progress indication

[Gene Cumm]

On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 9:02 AM, Paul Civati via Syslinux
<syslinux at zytor.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> back in previous versions (3.x I think) when you loaded the kernel or
> initrd (at least through PXELINUX) you would get some loading progress
> on screen with a series of periods.

Correct, this was changed in 5.00 as the loading code moved to pure C
rather than ASM and involved exactly 1 generic function call.

> At some point this feature just seemed to disappear.
>
> No idea why and I've not yet managed to track down a note in the change log.

Trying to find the history of this.  Initially each period was 64k
then 1M.  The new code came from linux.c32.

> I found this feature really useful because it gave you some positive indication
> that loading was proceeding rather than wondering if:
> a) the transfer had stalled or got stuck
> b) the file had loaded but then hung within the loaded code
> c) the file had a typo in the pxelinux config and wasn't loading at all
>
> Often now it's a case of hitting return from your menu and hoping that
> something is happening, particularly when you are loading a large image.
>
> I suppose that really I want to see this feature back in, especially now that
> there is also the option of loading over other non-TFTP streams, it would
> be useful to see that transfers are happening.
>
> I wouldn't object to this being an option rather than a default.
>
> Is there a reason not to have this feature?

Not yet implemented.

> Would code be accepted if someone were to contribute it?

Likely but bear in mind the printing would have to be quite conditional.

> I suppose the first thing to ascertain is if this was removed because of a
> technical reason or due to general user dislike?

Technical.  The old code was ASM.

-- 
-Gene