Mailing List Archive: trouble using syslinux

Hi there,

I'm using an embedded device sold by a german company called SSV.

Further Information about the device can be found on the following URL.
http://www.ssv-embedded.de/ssv/pc104/p170.htm

The IDE Interface is a very basic one.

Starting with syslinux 1.51 the system stopped booting correctly (1.67 does
not work as well).

With syslinux Version up to 1.50 erything works fine.

The boot sequence of newer Versions looks like this:

--cut--
FlashFx 4.02.204 (386 DOS)
Copyright (c) 1993-1999, Datalight Inc.
Datalight Patent US#5860082

SYSLINUX 1.67 2002-02-03 Copyright (C) 1994-2001 H. Peter Anvin
Loading fs.gz...
--cut--

Afterwards the System hangs.

It has to be mentioned, that there is an Onboard Flash memory which can be
booted from using ROM-DOS. Probably this driver interferes with the syslinux
loader.

Is there a possibility to compile syslinux in Verbose Mode?

Sven

--
This APT has Super Cow Powers.
(apt-get --help on debian woody)

/me is giggls@ircnet, http://geggus.net/sven/ on the Web

Sven Geggus wrote:

>
> --cut--
> FlashFx 4.02.204 (386 DOS)
> Copyright (c) 1993-1999, Datalight Inc.
> Datalight Patent US#5860082
>
>
> SYSLINUX 1.67 2002-02-03 Copyright (C) 1994-2001 H. Peter Anvin
> Loading fs.gz...
> --cut--
>
> Afterwards the System hangs.
>

It's almost certainly an A20 problem. First, you should complain to your
hardware vendor that their BIOS doesn't support INT 15h, AX=2401h,
especially since the AMD SC410 doesn't support the industry-standard
A20-switching mechanisms, but instead use their own setup.

There are enough SC410 problems that it is now a compile-time option for
the Linux kernel. I can't resolve this without breaking other systems;
you can either get your vendor to fix their BIOS, or modify SYSLINUX to
use a different A20-switching mechanism.

-hpa