Hi,
I am trying to track down a ISOLINUX boot problem on my workhorse computer.
Booting slax-6.0.0-rc5.iso from www.slax.org (a live distro) from CD gives the
following messages:
Loading /boot/vmlinuz ...........
Loading /boot/initrd.gz ............
Ready.
_
Silence. The next message should be, but does not appear:
Uncompressing Linux ...........
This message appears with the same CD on an old Pentium III, so the CD is not
broken, it boots perfectly on the old PC. I discussed the problem on the Slax
forum but I seem to be the only one with this problem.
The computer is a P4 on ASUS P5GD2, 1GB RAM, AMI BIOS, 3 SATA disks, DVD-ROM,
CD-RW. It _successfully_ boots from disk several SuSE distros, Slackware 12
and the unchanged content of the incriminated CD, written to an empty
partition, with the following GRUB-menu.lst entry:
title Slax 6.0 RC5
root (hd1,5)
kernel (hd1,5)/boot/vmlinuz init=linuxrc vga=0x31a splash=verbose \
load_ramdisk=1 ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw
initrd (hd1,5)/boot/initrd.gz
So I know the kernel on the failing CD is bootable. The corresponding
isolinux.cfg entry on the CD is
LABEL slax
MENU LABEL Slax Text mode
KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz
APPEND vga=normal initrd=/boot/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw
I tried isolinux.bin from three versions of syslinux, including the newest. I
tried to get more info by running isolinux-debug.bin from syslinux-3.51,
resulting in permanently the same messages (see above) and a boot stall
afterwards.
I would very much appreciate any hints how to proceed further isolating the
cause of the failure.
Regards,
Peter
Peter Bartke wrote:> Hi, > > I am trying to track down a ISOLINUX boot problem on my workhorse computer. > Booting slax-6.0.0-rc5.iso from www.slax.org (a live distro) from CD gives the > following messages: > > Loading /boot/vmlinuz ........... > Loading /boot/initrd.gz ............ > Ready. > _ > > Silence. The next message should be, but does not appear: > Uncompressing Linux ........... > This message appears with the same CD on an old Pentium III, so the CD is not > broken, it boots perfectly on the old PC. I discussed the problem on the Slax > forum but I seem to be the only one with this problem.You are aware that burnable CDs don't necessarily "work" or "not work"; it's fairly common for them to be marginal so that they work in some machines, but not others, right? Since you can boot the offending machine, I would try to dd the CD to an image *on the failing machine* and compare it to the raw image. That doesn't necessarily imply things are hunky-dory, but it's something.> The computer is a P4 on ASUS P5GD2, 1GB RAM, AMI BIOS, 3 SATA disks, DVD-ROM, > CD-RW. It _successfully_ boots from disk several SuSE distros, Slackware 12 > and the unchanged content of the incriminated CD, written to an empty > partition, with the following GRUB-menu.lst entry: > > title Slax 6.0 RC5 > root (hd1,5) > kernel (hd1,5)/boot/vmlinuz init=linuxrc vga=0x31a splash=verbose \ > load_ramdisk=1 ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw > initrd (hd1,5)/boot/initrd.gz > > So I know the kernel on the failing CD is bootable. The corresponding > isolinux.cfg entry on the CD is > > LABEL slax > MENU LABEL Slax Text mode > KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz > APPEND vga=normal initrd=/boot/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw > > I tried isolinux.bin from three versions of syslinux, including the newest. I > tried to get more info by running isolinux-debug.bin from syslinux-3.51, > resulting in permanently the same messages (see above) and a boot stall > afterwards. > > I would very much appreciate any hints how to proceed further isolating the > cause of the failure.What it looks like to me is that ISOLINUX reads the data in question, but gets corruption from the BIOS. What kernel version are you trying to boot? -hpa
> What it looks like to me is that ISOLINUX reads the data in question,> but gets corruption from the BIOS. What kernel version are you trying > to boot? I think I can answer this question, as the author of Slax6rc5 :) The kernel is 2.6.21.5 A question, what shows the "uncompressing kernel" message? isolinux or kernel itself? Tomas M
Tomas M wrote:>> What it looks like to me is that ISOLINUX reads the data in question, >> but gets corruption from the BIOS. What kernel version are you trying >> to boot? > > I think I can answer this question, as the author of Slax6rc5 :) > The kernel is 2.6.21.5 > > A question, what shows the "uncompressing kernel" message? isolinux or > kernel itself? >"Uncompressing kernel..." comes from the kernel decompressor, which is the second of three stages embedded in the kernel image. Stage 1 is the kernel setup code. Usually silent, but if you specify "vga=ask" you get a menu from the setup code. Stage 2 is the kernel decompressor, prints "Uncompressing kernel... done." Stage 3 is the kernel proper, which prints a number of messages, of course. -hpa
> Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 07:25:00 -0700 > From: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa at zytor.com> > Subject: Re: [syslinux] ISOLINUX boot problem: request for help > To: For discussion of SYSLINUX and tftp-hpa <syslinux at zytor.com> > Message-ID: <46AA003C.7030203 at zytor.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Peter Bartke wrote: > > > > Remember, I installed on this computer SUSE 9.3/10.1/10.2, the first two > > by DVD, the last by 5 openSuSE CDs, Slackware 11/Slackware 12 were > > installed by 3 CD's. The Slax Distribution 5.1.8 Live CD starts without > > problems. Only Slax 6.0RC4 and Slax 6.0RC5 showed this problem. Thus I > > discussed it first on the Slax forum with main developer Tomas. Finally > > I came here. After analyzing I can only suspect a combination of > > isolinux.bin and kernel 2.6.21.5 guilty. This very kernel boots > > perfectly by Grub from disk! > > It probably isn't the kernel so much as the exact alignment mkisofs ends > up using to put it on the CD, i.e. it depends mostly on other files. > This has been reported a number of times; I just haven't found a > workaround for it. It's a massive problem that the BIOS doesn't report > an error, but instead fail silently. This makes it very, very hard for > ISOLINUX to know that a workaround is needed. > > Since you happen to have a very reproducible case even when isolinux.bin > is changed, this might be very valuable. I'm about to embark a plane, > but I will think about what kind of workarounds could possibly help. > > -hpa > >Gentlemen: I have extensive experience using ISOLINUX and all rec versions of Slax (incl Slax-6-RC5) and have never had a single "phantom" problem w/ the pair. In fact, I just made my 1st RC5 disc on Fri and it worked flawlessly, as expected. When things don't work, they're usu attributable to a couple of things: 1) the -boot-info-table option: the absence of this cmd-line option can cause discs to work fine on one PC and fail in bizarre (ie. different) ways on other PCs. Personally, I use a commercial GUI program (in Windows) for creating my ISOs, but K3B is available, esp if you remaster on a PC that has more than one optical drive (one to boot with, one to burn with.) Actually, one could use the version of K3B under RC5 to create an ISO or burn directly to disc. Moreover, the make_iso script provided on the Slax CD definitely works. 2) single-session CDs: Bec Slax is relatively small and bec I've extended other CD projects using multiple sessions, I "thought" this mite be possible w/ Slax. No. One must close (finalize) -boot-info-table discs for them to work reliably on multiple PCs. Have wasted many CD-Rs in pursuit of this goal and it's simply too unreliable, so I would strongly discourage this practice. The final straw for me was when I tried a newly burned-remastered RC3 (also open) disc on a client's PC. Had been working on everything else, but the open RC3 disc failed immed trying to load the kernel and dropped rite back to the 'boot:' prompt. 3) no CD-RWs: After doing this sort of thing for several years and having noticed a reference to this in one of your replies: NO CD-RWs ! If you need test a remastered live CD project, use QEMU, Virtual Box, or VMWare. You can also use the 'from=' parameter to load the contents of your custom filesystem (ie. /boot and /slax) from a sub-dir on your hdrive (eg. /mnt/hda1/rc5), then boot using something like 'from=/mnt/hda1/rc5' appended to the ISOLINUX cmd-line. I've made literally dozens of bootable CDs/DVDs using ISOLINUX as the sole bootloader, in the past year and most incorporate Slax 5 or 6. I've even started a discussion forum on the subj called Super-Disc: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=94398 In theory, this issue could represent the emergence of a new BIOS incompatibility, but one mite consider these factors first. Hope this helps.... Omron Blood Pressure Monitor On Sale Top Ranking By Top Consumer Magazine. Free, Fast Delivery. All Models. http://a8-asy.a8ww.net/a8-ads/adftrclick?redirectid=931e3c326a4ce77ecbd03a66c2415a7e -- Powered by Outblaze
H. Peter Anvin schrieb am Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 09:15:15PM -0700:> > Could you send me your isolinux.cfg, and also let me know what version > of isolinux this uses?I will send these files by direct mail, not to mess up the mailing list. Slax 6.0 is based on Slackware current, which is Slackware 12.0 now for RC4, RC5 and RC6. It uses syslinux-3.36. I also tried the isolinux.bin from slackware 11 (syslinux-2.13) and the newest one from your site, syslinux-3.51. Peter