Hi, I discovered a very strange situation. I have 22 systems running Fedora 21 (F21) with bundled syslinux-extlinux 6.03. On one of those systems, I am having trouble booting. This machine was upgraded from Fedora 19 (F19), so can boot either the new or the old O/S -- F19 is on one disk partitition, F21 is on another, and there's a shared /boot partition. On this one machine, when I try to boot into F21 using the F21 version of extlinux, the system resets (reboots) right at this point: Loading /vmlinuz-4.0.5-200.fc21.x86_64... ok Loading /initramfs-4.0.5-200.fc21.x86_64.img...ok And then it reboots. If I instead choose the F19 partition from the extlinux boot menu, it boots successfully into F19. I tried this with 2 different versions of the F21 kernel (3.19.7 and 4.0.5), and I observed the same behavior. If I boot up into F19 and install the F19 version of syslinux-extlinux (4.05), I can then boot successfully into either F19 or F21. To summarize: F21 extlinux 6.03 can boot only the F19 partition, but F19 extlinux 4.05 can boot either F19 or F21. The same setup works without any troubles on 21 other computers, but on this particular one, the F21 extlinux cannot boot the F21 kernel/initramfs. The machine in question is very old -- it's an Intel S5000VCL motherboard with a Xeon E5420 CPU and 1 GB of memory. I don't have any others with this same motherboard. But I do have older systems with less memory that work fine (for example, an Intel SE7230NH1LX motherboard with a Pentium 4 cpu and 512 MB of memory). Is there any way of troubleshooting this? Thanks, Andy
> Hi, > > I discovered a very strange situation. I have 22 systems running Fedora 21 > (F21) with bundled syslinux-extlinux 6.03. On one of those systems, I am > having trouble booting. This machine was upgraded from Fedora 19 (F19), so can > boot either the new or the old O/S -- F19 is on one disk partitition, F21 > is on another, and there's a shared /boot partition. On this one machine, > when I try to boot into F21 using the F21 version of extlinux, the system > resets (reboots) right at this point: > > Loading /vmlinuz-4.0.5-200.fc21.x86_64... ok > Loading /initramfs-4.0.5-200.fc21.x86_64.img...ok > > And then it reboots. If I instead choose the F19 partition from the extlinux > boot menu, it boots successfully into F19. I tried this with 2 different > versions of the F21 kernel (3.19.7 and 4.0.5), and I observed the same > behavior. > > If I boot up into F19 and install the F19 version of syslinux-extlinux > (4.05), I can then boot successfully into either F19 or F21. > > To summarize: F21 extlinux 6.03 can boot only the F19 partition, > but F19 extlinux 4.05 can boot either F19 or F21. The same setup works > without any troubles on 21 other computers, but on this particular one, > the F21 extlinux cannot boot the F21 kernel/initramfs. > > The machine in question is very old -- it's an Intel S5000VCL motherboard > with a Xeon E5420 CPU and 1 GB of memory. I don't have any others with > this same motherboard. But I do have older systems with less memory that > work fine (for example, an Intel SE7230NH1LX motherboard with > a Pentium 4 cpu and 512 MB of memory). > > Is there any way of troubleshooting this? > > Thanks, > AndyIt is not so clear to me which version of Syslinux (or which version of its Fedora's packages) you are actually using to boot these systems (not just the one currently failing). The behavior you are describing "sounds" as if some version mismatch between the bootloader file and some c32 module might be going on, although there is no detail that would differentiate this particular system from the others (that keep working OK). The typical suggestion might be relevant here: Is there any BIOS update available for this system? If you change the version of the bootloader actually booting the system (independently of the version of the packages you might have installed in the particular OS you want to boot), then you should be sure that the c32 files being used to boot (independently of the version of the packages you might have installed in the particular OS you want to boot) are using the exact same version (i.e. copied from the same exact package as the extlinux command being used to install the bootloader). Have you tried to use the official upstream binaries downloaded from kernel.org (instead of the packages installed in your OSes)? When you do, please remember to copy over the c32 files too from the same official upstream archives. There is a chance that _not_ using (vesa)menu.c32 might help you see more details. I won't get into the NASM 2.11.06 issue (neither into any other potential building issue). The previously mentioned troubleshooting steps go first. Regards, Ady.> _______________________________________________ > Syslinux mailing list > Submissions to Syslinux at zytor.com > Unsubscribe or set options at: > http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux >
Hi, On Fri, Jul 03, 2015 at 07:13:18AM +0300, Ady via Syslinux wrote:> It is not so clear to me which version of Syslinux (or which version of its > Fedora's packages) you are actually using to boot these systems (not just the one > currently failing).Sorry I wasn't clear. Fedora 19 was installed on a / and /boot partition. I then installed Fedora 21 on a separate / partition and overwrite all the extlinux components in /boot/extlinux with the new versions. I have followed the same procedure many times. The extlinux.conf file has entries for both Fedora 19 and Fedora 21, but the syslinux-extlinux installation was entirely Fedora 21 version 6.03. With this configuration, this one system fails to boot Fedora 21. This approach worked fine on over 20 other systems upgraded the same way. It resets after printing these messages: SYSLINUX 6.03 Copyright (C) 1994-2014 H. Peter Anvin et al ... (displays boot menu using menu.c32) ... Loading /vmlinuz-4.0.5-200.fc21.x86_64... ok Loading /initramfs-4.0.5-200.fc21.x86_64.img...ok This machine is attached to a serial console. There is no error message; it just reboots at that point. But the same Fedora 21 extlinux 6.03 setup is able to boot the Fedora 19 partition successfully. Once I am up and running Fedora 19, I run the following commands (using Fedora 19 extlinux version 4.05): dd if=/usr/share/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sda extlinux --install /boot/extlinux If I then reboot the system, it is able to boot into either Fedora 19 or Fedora 21 without any problems. It is true that I do get some minor complaints: SYSLINUX 4.05 2011-12-09 Copyright (C) 1994-2011 H. Peter Anvin et al menu.c32: not a COM32R image boot: But I can select the desired label from the "boot:" prompt, and now it boots successfully into Fedora 21.> The behavior you are describing "sounds" as if some version mismatch between the > bootloader file and some c32 module might be going on, although there is no detail > that would differentiate this particular system from the others (that keep working > OK).I don't think it's a mismatch issue. I have followed the same scripted procedure many times without any problems.> The typical suggestion might be relevant here: Is there any BIOS update available > for this system?There is probably a more recent BIOS, but why would that matter? The system boots fine under syslinux 4.05 and has problems under 6.03. I may be able to upgrade the BIOS next week.> If you change the version of the bootloader actually booting the system > (independently of the version of the packages you might have installed in the > particular OS you want to boot), then you should be sure that the c32 files being > used to boot (independently of the version of the packages you might have installed > in the particular OS you want to boot) are using the exact same version (i.e. > copied from the same exact package as the extlinux command being used to install > the bootloader).The completely vanilla 6.03 setup fails to boot. The problem is that there is no error message, so it's very hard to troubleshoot.> Have you tried to use the official upstream binaries downloaded from kernel.org > (instead of the packages installed in your OSes)? When you do, please remember to > copy over the c32 files too from the same official upstream archives.I have not yet.> There is a chance that _not_ using (vesa)menu.c32 might help you see more details.I'll give that a try. An error message would be really helpful in chasing this down.> I won't get into the NASM 2.11.06 issue (neither into any other potential building > issue). The previously mentioned troubleshooting steps go first.I wasn't aware of that. Thanks, Andy