[syslinux] regression: relocatable kernels on a chromebook

Scot Doyle
Fri, 06 Feb 2015 15:58:10 -0000

On Fri, 6 Feb 2015, Ady wrote:
> ...
> But if we are talking about Chromebooks with SeaBIOS, are we talking
> about booting kernels in CSM mode? Or in UEFI mode?
>
> Other than Chromebooks with (stock) SeaBIOS, is this new reported
> behavior also seen under other cases / hardware / firmware / kernels
> (versions)?

Hi Ady,

With a clone of the git repo on kernel.org I run
make spotless bios; make bios
./bios/extlinux/extlinux -i {target mounted partition}

The extlinux partition contains both kernels, ldlinux.sys, ldlinux.c32 and
extlinux.conf, which is
PROMPT 1
LABEL 1
  LINUX {relocatable vmlinuz}
  APPEND root={target partition}
LABEL 2
  LINUX {nonrelocatable vmlinuz}
  APPEND root={target partition}

I've heard that the SeaBIOS on these machines may report an incorrect
amount of memory, requiring (at least older versions of) syslinux to
use/pass "mem=1500m" or some such on the APPEND line for some linux
iso
installers. As shown above, this does not affect the regression test, but
that's not to say any incorrect report from the SeaBIOS is not involved.
Also, I don't know if other hardware is affected.

Thanks,
Scot