[syslinux] Isolinux 6.03 hangs under qemu with Intel HAXM accel

[Ady Ady]

> Hello friends!
> 
> HAXM is a hardware-assisted virtualization engine (hypervisor) that uses
> Intel Virtualization Technology to speed up IA (x86/ x86_64) emulation on a
> host machine running Windows or macOS.
> 
> Latest Isolinux 6.03 hangs under VM after "Main image LBA =...".
> 
> Please, help us investigate the root of the problem.
> Bug on github: https://github.com/intel/haxm/issues/15
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> ---
> Alexander
 
 
The last time we had this kind of report, IIRC (but I could be 
misremembering) it was related to building ISOLINUX with GCC 5+, and 
seen only on specific hardware/bios.

>From the linked report, the only potentially-relevant test would be 
with the latest Debian "netinst" ISO; the other ISO images mentioned in 
the github issue report at this time are using "old" (aka "un-patched", 
"non-maintained") versions of ISOLINUX (including the current Debian's 
"mini.iso", so Debian's "netinst" would be the smaller one available at 
the moment).


So, I would suggest testing with "isolinux-debug.bin" from Debian Sid 
or, even better, from Debian's "experimental" (and using _all_ the 
relevant c32 files from the _same_ matching package version). For these 
tests, please use the binary packages for now, instead of building your 
own.

There are additional potential tests, but IMHO the above would be the 
first one, in order to start narrowing down the problem, if the real 
problem happens to be somewhere in ISOLINUX.


OTOH, perhaps this is more about the "ipxe" part of that github report? 
Could ipxe be left aside for the tests, so as to isolate the problem? 
The same could be asked about the SeaBIOS part (e.g. using a different 
bios file/version in qemu). All these factors are important, 
considering that this type of problems are mostly present in specific 
hardware/bios only.


Please note: only replacing "isolinux.bin" when rebuilding ISO images 
is _not_ a relevant test; the c32 modules _must_ match the exact same 
bootloader's version/build/package (i.e. they must be replaced too).

Regards,
Ady.