[syslinux] Plop Boot Manager quit working with 5.10

Ady
Mon, 01 Jul 2013 16:58:51 -0000

> On Fri, 28 Jun, at 07:32:30PM, Patrick Verner wrote:
> > I have updated syslinux in Parted Magic's test version to the 5.10
release.
> > With 4.06 I booted plop like this:
> >
> > LINUX /boot/plpbt/plpbt.bin
> >
> > Now it says /boot/plpbt/plpbt.bin... ok
> > Booting kernel failed: Invalid argument
> >
> > Other "extras" like IPXE, HDT, memtest86+, chntpw, Super
Grub Disk, etc...
> > all work with 5.10. Revert to 4.06 and plop works again.
>
> Could you try Syslinux 5.11-pre5?
>
> > Is this a problem with syslinux or plop?
>
> For some reason, the plpbt.bin file didn't have a valid initrd_addr_max
> field in its header, for some reason. Which caused the kernel loader to
> barf.  Do you know why this field was zero? How did you build your
> kernel image?
>
> --
> Matt Fleming, Intel Open Source Technology Center
> _______________________________________________

Hi Matt,

I don't know if 4.06 (where PLoP works OK) uses the same method as
5.11pre5, but anyway...

Vbox 4.2.14; isolinux-debug.bin 5.11-pre5; menu.c32; then

A_ MEMDISK; plop.img (from official plop manager package) ; OK.
B_ 'LINUX plop' ; OK
C_ 'linux.c32 plop' ; OK
D_ 'ifplop.c32 -- plop' ; FAILS as before.

Which probably means ifplop.c32 also needs some patch in v.5+ (?).

To be clear, I only tested booting plop 5.0.15-test (and under VBox
4.2.14 only), and I have NOT tested the next step, which would be
using PLoP itself to boot something else.

Additional tests might be helpful, under different circumstances and
real hardware, and using PLoP itself (initially booted from each
Syslinux variant) to actually boot something from it.

Regards,
Ady.