Syslinux - Nov 2013 - Booting with Syslinux 6.01 & 6.02 fails, causes restart.

Hi there.

I had a quick look through the archives, and I spotted a similar issue
being reported in October, but no resolution, unfortunately.
"[syslinux] Syslinux 6.02 BIOS"

I am booting in legacy (bios) mode on a gpt partition on my laptop.
It's a HP ENVY dv7.
CPU: Intel i7,
BIOS: InsydeH2O
version: F. 12

With syslinux 4.06, it boots flawlessly.

With syslinux 6.01 and 6.02, the welcoming message flashes up, then
the automatic booting of the first initramfs.

It's a rather large initramfs.

Straight away the booting process looks different than with 4.06.
The periods that were showing progress in loading the initramfs now
does not increase as the initramfs is loaded. So, only three periods
after each initramfs.
Once the last initramfs is loaded, the system re-starts.

This process repeats about six or seven times, then the kernel loads..
but only when booting from an internal hard disk. If I try booting
through syslinux 6.02 installed on an external USB hard disk, it just
carries on loading the initramfs, then rebooting for about ten times,
then then it just constantly reboots, shows the automatic boot window,
and reboots again.


What information do you require from me to help with troubleshooting?
Syslinux was compiled from sources on my laptop, and I am quite happy
to try patching the source code if someone has an idea to try.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
On a side note, I have a video clip of the faulty booting, as I was
trying to see if there is an error message I am missing, but none was
apparent. It's possible for me to post this clip on youtube and post a
link here if anybody is interested.

-- 
Evert Vorster
Chief Observer
WG Cook

On Sat, Nov 23, 2013 at 5:49 AM, Evert Vorster <evorster at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi there.
>
> I had a quick look through the archives, and I spotted a similar issue
> being reported in October, but no resolution, unfortunately.
> "[syslinux] Syslinux 6.02 BIOS"
>
> I am booting in legacy (bios) mode on a gpt partition on my laptop.
> It's a HP ENVY dv7.
> CPU: Intel i7,
> BIOS: InsydeH2O
> version: F. 12
>
> With syslinux 4.06, it boots flawlessly.
>
> With syslinux 6.01 and 6.02, the welcoming message flashes up, then
> the automatic booting of the first initramfs.
>
> It's a rather large initramfs.
>
> Straight away the booting process looks different than with 4.06.
> The periods that were showing progress in loading the initramfs now
> does not increase as the initramfs is loaded. So, only three periods
> after each initramfs.
That happened in version 5.00.
> Once the last initramfs is loaded, the system re-starts.
>
> This process repeats about six or seven times, then the kernel loads..
> but only when booting from an internal hard disk. If I try booting
> through syslinux 6.02 installed on an external USB hard disk, it just
> carries on loading the initramfs, then rebooting for about ten times,
> then then it just constantly reboots, shows the automatic boot window,
> and reboots again.
>
>
> What information do you require from me to help with troubleshooting?
> Syslinux was compiled from sources on my laptop, and I am quite happy
> to try patching the source code if someone has an idea to try.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> On a side note, I have a video clip of the faulty booting, as I was
> trying to see if there is an error message I am missing, but none was
> apparent. It's possible for me to post this clip on youtube and post a
> link here if anybody is interested.
Are you also doing PXE booting?  This detail seems missing but your
reference seems to indicate possibly.

bios/core/pxelinux.0 or bios/core/lpxelinux.0?  Did you use the
precompiled binary right after extraction with no make commands?

-- 
-Gene

>> Straight away the booting process looks different than with 4.06.
>> The periods that were showing progress in loading the initramfs now
>> does not increase as the initramfs is loaded. So, only three periods
>> after each initramfs.
>
> That happened in version 5.00.
Good to know that this is expected behavior. However, some sort of
indication that the initramfs is loading would have been nice. Solaris
uses a spinning cursor, for instance. But, this is not important to
the current issue.
>> Once the last initramfs is loaded, the system re-starts.
This is the bit I am having a problem with.
> Are you also doing PXE booting?  This detail seems missing but your
> reference seems to indicate possibly.
No, I am using extlinux/syslinux, as far as I am aware they are the
same things these days.

I am trying to boot a volume that has been partitioned with gpt.
It has a legacy bios boot bit, that is set active. As I said before,
with syslinux/extlinux 4.06 this works flawlessly.
> bios/core/pxelinux.0 or bios/core/lpxelinux.0?  Did you use the
> precompiled binary right after extraction with no make commands?
I compiled from sources.
First gnu-efi, then syslinux. I can provide compile logs if you are interested.

Then I installed with extlinux --install -s /boot
and then copied in gptmbr into /dev/sda

and re-created the initramfs bundle that this distrobution boots from .

Then rebooted.


Thanks for the quick response.
-Evert-