Syslinux - Mar 2003 - PXE boot times out after "Loading."

I am trying to install Debian GNU/Linux onto a floppy-less CD-ROM-less 
Shuttle XPC SS40G with an AMD Athlon installed. 

This machine has an on-board ethernet controller (RealTek 8139), but I had 
also added an Intel Pro/100 Ethernet card, and I am trying to boot via that 
additional Ethernet card.

Following the instructions at:
http://www.debianplanet.org/node.php?id=818
I obtained the stock 'woody' kernel and root image, installed them on 
the TFTP server (running 'atftpd') as suggested, restarted the
superserver
and the DHCP server, and started the Shuttle.

The machine successfully found the tftp/dhcp server, obtained an IP
address for itself, and gave me a "boot:" prompt.  I entered the label
corresponding to the boot image I wanted to install, and this seemd to 
initiate the loading of the kernel.

Soon thereafter however, the boot loader got stuck, with the following 
message:

Loading.
8000
AX:0208
BX:0200
CX:0002
DX:0000.
8000
AX:0208
... (repeats)

At this point, the tftp process begins to record this in syslog:
sent DATA <block: 36, size 512>
timeout: retrying...

I checked that the md5sums of the files that I'd downloaded from the 
Debian site were correct.

Can anyone offer suggestions as to what I might look at to diagnose this
problem?

Thanks in advance,
Susan

I have experimented with other kernel flavors in an attempt to solve this
problem.  The answer is that the Shuttle XPC SS40G boots Debian GNU/Linux 
just fine under pxelinux when one uses Debian's 'compact' flavor of
kernel,
rather than the experimental 'bf2.4' flavor.

Hoping this info is useful to someone,
Susan

Susan Kleinmann wrote:
> 
> The machine successfully found the tftp/dhcp server, obtained an IP
> address for itself, and gave me a "boot:" prompt.  I entered the
label
> corresponding to the boot image I wanted to install, and this seemd to 
> initiate the loading of the kernel.
> 
> Soon thereafter however, the boot loader got stuck, with the following 
> message:
> 
> Loading.
> 8000
> AX:0208
> BX:0200
> CX:0002
> DX:0000.
> 8000
> AX:0208
> ... (repeats)
> 
This is pretty much the PXE stack equivalent of a core dump, or so it 
seems :(

Yet another broken PXE stack?  :(

	-hpa