Syslinux - Nov 2011 - extlinux from syslinux 4.04 failed hard after choosing bzImage.

Hi,

Today I replaced grub(1) with syslinux on my laptop, after rebooting to 
syslinux and selecting kernel I got massive freeze along with colorful 
output to screen - http://i.imgur.com/lFjFc.jpg

I think I tried everything, even doing esc and writing after boot: 
/bzImage-3.1.0, after enter I had the same freeze with the same screen 
artefacts.

How I installed extlinux:
mkdir /boot/extlinux
extlinux --install /boot/extlinux
cp /usr/share/syslinux/menu.c32 /boot/extlinux/

and the config file /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf:
TIMEOUT 30
UI menu.c32

MENU TITLE Boot Menu
MENU COLOR title	1;37;40
MENU COLOR border	30;40
MENU COLOR unsel	37;40

#title Gentoo bzImage-3.1.0
#kernel /bzImage-3.1.0 quiet rootfstype=ext4 luks enc_root=/dev/sda2 lvm 
root=/dev/mapper/vg-rootfs
#initrd /initramfs.cpio.gz

LABEL Gentoo bzImage-3.1.0
KERNEL /bzImage-3.1.0
INITRD /initramfs.cpio.gz
APPEND quiet rootfstype=ext4 luks enc_root=/dev/sda2 lvm 
root=/dev/mapper/vg-rootfs

LABEL test
	MENU LABEL asdasd
	KERNEL /bzImage
	INITRD /initramfs
	APPEND root=/dev/md2 softraid

I tested extlinux into KVM virtual machine and there everything was ok. 
After booting livecd and reinstalling grub's mbr I was able boot it just 
fine - so the kernel image is correct.

Any idea what could went wrong? I never saw such issue.

-- Piotr.

On 19.11.2011 16:11, Piotr Karbowski wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Today I replaced grub(1) with syslinux on my laptop, after rebooting to
> syslinux and selecting kernel I got massive freeze along with colorful
> output to screen - http://i.imgur.com/lFjFc.jpg
>
> I think I tried everything, even doing esc and writing after boot:
> /bzImage-3.1.0, after enter I had the same freeze with the same screen
> artefacts.
>
> How I installed extlinux:
> mkdir /boot/extlinux
> extlinux --install /boot/extlinux
> cp /usr/share/syslinux/menu.c32 /boot/extlinux/
>
> and the config file /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf:
> TIMEOUT 30
> UI menu.c32
>
> MENU TITLE Boot Menu
> MENU COLOR title 1;37;40
> MENU COLOR border 30;40
> MENU COLOR unsel 37;40
>
> #title Gentoo bzImage-3.1.0
> #kernel /bzImage-3.1.0 quiet rootfstype=ext4 luks enc_root=/dev/sda2 lvm
> root=/dev/mapper/vg-rootfs
> #initrd /initramfs.cpio.gz
>
> LABEL Gentoo bzImage-3.1.0
> KERNEL /bzImage-3.1.0
> INITRD /initramfs.cpio.gz
> APPEND quiet rootfstype=ext4 luks enc_root=/dev/sda2 lvm
> root=/dev/mapper/vg-rootfs
>
> LABEL test
> MENU LABEL asdasd
> KERNEL /bzImage
> INITRD /initramfs
> APPEND root=/dev/md2 softraid
>
> I tested extlinux into KVM virtual machine and there everything was ok.
> After booting livecd and reinstalling grub's mbr I was able boot it
just
> fine - so the kernel image is correct.
>
> Any idea what could went wrong? I never saw such issue.
FWIW just builded syslinux from git, reinstalled mbr and extlinux to 
/boot/extlinux with no luck. Removing UI menu.c32 also changed nothing.

-- Piotr.

On 19.11.2011 16:11, Piotr Karbowski wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Today I replaced grub(1) with syslinux on my laptop, after rebooting to
> syslinux and selecting kernel I got massive freeze along with colorful
> output to screen - http://i.imgur.com/lFjFc.jpg
>
> I think I tried everything, even doing esc and writing after boot:
> /bzImage-3.1.0, after enter I had the same freeze with the same screen
> artefacts.
>
Last week I stumbled across the same bug. Couldn't boot kernel 3.1.0 
with exactly the same symptoms as you (screen full of weird characters). 
Fortunately, there's a simple workaround I found here: 
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=647603

Just rename the kernel image to something that doesn't end with zero 
(e.g. bzImage-3.1) and it will boot just fine.

Somehow extlinux chokes on kernel image names with zero in the last 
place. Strange...
-- 
Tyler