Hi, I have been trying to boot a PC based terminal using your PXELINUX project and I am having a problem. The Terminal (a Netier NetXpress XL2000) has a m-systems Disk-On-Chip 2000 flash memory module which is normally used to boot a cut-down version of WinNT. I work in a repair department where we often have to open up these terminals and temporarily install a hard-drive to reflash the disk-on-chip based firmware so I was hoping to make repairs easier by netbooting then reflashing over the network. These terminals have PXE compatible network bios and are based on Pentium technology. They boot linux correctly using PXELINUX if the flash memory is disabled but when enabled PXELINUX gets as far as loading the kernel, displays a 'ready' message then hangs. It does the same when using memtest86 as kernel image (works without flash, hangs with it). Is this a known problem and is there a way I can patch your source to avoid the problem ( the flash memory simulates an IDE device but may be using some memory your loader needs?). Using memdisk to try booting a floppy disk image displays a disk error (these terminals have no floppy drives installed). I will try using a hard-disk image when I work out an easy way to create one. Thanks for your help, Nigel
Nigel Feltham wrote:> > These terminals have PXE compatible network bios and are based on Pentium > technology. They boot linux correctly using PXELINUX if the flash memory is > disabled but when enabled PXELINUX gets as far as loading the kernel, > displays a 'ready' message then hangs. It does the same when using memtest86 > as kernel image (works without flash, hangs with it). Is this a known problem > and is there a way I can patch your source to avoid the problem ( the flash > memory simulates an IDE device but may be using some memory your loader > needs?). >Make sure you're using a kernel which supports the 2.02 boot protocol (2.4.0-test3-pre3 or later.) -hpa
> The Terminal (a Netier NetXpress XL2000) has a m-systems Disk-On-Chip 2000 > flash memory module which is normally used to boot a cut-down version of > WinNT. I work in a repair department where we often have to open up these > terminals and temporarily install a hard-drive to reflash the disk-on-chip > based firmware so I was hoping to make repairs easier by netbooting then > reflashing over the network. > > These terminals have PXE compatible network bios and are based on Pentium > technology. They boot linux correctly using PXELINUX if the flash memory is > disabled but when enabled PXELINUX gets as far as loading the kernel, > displays a 'ready' message then hangs. It does the same when using memtest86 > as kernel image (works without flash, hangs with it). Is this a known problem > and is there a way I can patch your source to avoid the problem ( the flash > memory simulates an IDE device but may be using some memory your loader > needs?).The issues of DoC has appeared on the LinuxBIOS and Etherboot lists; loading something in the wrong place doesn't seem like a problem until you actually try to tun the image. I quote loader.S from the Etherboot source... /* This provides for execution at 0x88000 to avoid disk-on-chip drivers */ #undef NOT_AT_0x9xxxx #if (RELOC & 0xF0000) != 0x90000 #define NOT_AT_0x9xxxx #else #define MAX_SP ((RELOC & 0xF0000) + 0x10000 - RELOC) /* e.g. RELOC = 0x84000, MAX_SP = 0x90000 - 0x84000 = 0xC000 */ #endif You can get a PXE-loadable Etherboot image from rom-o-matic. I can't recall what the appropriate switch is; you'll probably need to look at the configure options and possibly the source. http://etherboot.sourceforge.net/ http://www.rom-o-matic.com/