2008-06-10 17:58:21

by Keith Roberts

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Problems with edd

Hi all. I have a problem with trying to boot from a Fedora 9
installation CD-R. It works on another machine, so the disk
is OK. I guess if anyone knows the answer then it will be
found here on the kernel developers list.

When trying to boot from a CD-R installation disk, on my
Advent 6415 laptop I get the following:

Welcome to Fedora 9! [the installer splash screen]

I then click on either:

Install or upgrade an existing system
[or]
Install or upgrade an existing system (text mode)

[both give me the same following error]

Loading vmlinuz...........................................
..............

Loading initrd.img........................................
.................
...............ready.
Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)... ok
vmlinuz: attempted DOS system call
boot:

If I hit return now, the machine goes back to the 'Welcome
to Fedora 9!' splash screen.

I have edited the kernel parameters at the spalsh screen and
tried:

edd=skipmbr edd=off

All that does is not display the line:
Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)... ok

The installation still hangs at the boot: prompt.

Has anyone come across the behaviour before please?

Is there any way I can get my laptop to boot from this
media, maybe by passing some undocumented kernel parameters?

Kind Regards,

Keith Roberts


2008-06-10 21:58:59

by Roland

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Problems with edd

>Hi all. I have a problem with trying to boot from a Fedora 9
>installation CD-R. It works on another machine, so the disk
>is OK. I guess if anyone knows the answer then it will be
>found here on the kernel developers list.
>
>When trying to boot from a CD-R installation disk, on my
>Advent 6415 laptop I get the following:
>
>Welcome to Fedora 9! [the installer splash screen]
>
> I then click on either:
>
> Install or upgrade an existing system
> [or]
> Install or upgrade an existing system (text mode)
>
> [both give me the same following error]
>
> Loading vmlinuz...........................................
>..............
>
> Loading initrd.img........................................
>.................
> ...............ready.
> Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)... ok
> vmlinuz: attempted DOS system call
> boot:
>
> If I hit return now, the machine goes back to the 'Welcome
>to Fedora 9!' splash screen.
>
>I have edited the kernel parameters at the spalsh screen and
>tried:
>
>edd=skipmbr edd=off
>
>All that does is not display the line:
> Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)... ok

as you can see "ok" , then this is no edd problem
it would have been an edd problem if you could only see
the message before "ok".

>The installation still hangs at the boot: prompt.
>
>Has anyone come across the behaviour before please?
>

no, but i`m sure that this is not related to edd.

not sure if this is fedora specific, but it seems so - see for example:

http://blogs.gnome.org/diegoe/2008/04/10/vesamenuc32-attempted-dos-system-call/

maybe some issue with the vesa bios probe for getting video mode information or switching to appropriate mode.

cc`ing hpa - maybe he as a clue.....

>Is there any way I can get my laptop to boot from this
>media, maybe by passing some undocumented kernel parameters?

see that link. try booting with "linux" or "linux0".

i think it`s good to report to the fedora people - maybe the have added stuff which doesn`t work reliable...

>Kind Regards,
>Keith Roberts

regards
roland

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2008-06-10 22:44:27

by H. Peter Anvin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Problems with edd

[email protected] wrote:
>
> no, but i`m sure that this is not related to edd.
>
> not sure if this is fedora specific, but it seems so - see for example:
>
> http://blogs.gnome.org/diegoe/2008/04/10/vesamenuc32-attempted-dos-system-call/
>
> maybe some issue with the vesa bios probe for getting video mode information or switching to appropriate mode.
>
> cc`ing hpa - maybe he as a clue.....
>

This message usually means your vesamenu.c32 is out of sync with the
underlying Syslinux version.

If that is not an issue, there is virtually no information in that blog
(lovely to use a blog instead of filing a proper bug report) that one
can hang a hat on.

-hpa

2008-06-10 22:48:21

by H. Peter Anvin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Problems with edd

[email protected] wrote:
>> Hi all. I have a problem with trying to boot from a Fedora 9
>> installation CD-R. It works on another machine, so the disk
>> is OK. I guess if anyone knows the answer then it will be
>> found here on the kernel developers list.
>>
>> When trying to boot from a CD-R installation disk, on my
>> Advent 6415 laptop I get the following:
>>
>> Welcome to Fedora 9! [the installer splash screen]
>>
>> I then click on either:
>>
>> Install or upgrade an existing system
>> [or]
>> Install or upgrade an existing system (text mode)
>>
>> [both give me the same following error]
>>
>> Loading vmlinuz...........................................
>> ..............
>>
>> Loading initrd.img........................................
>> .................
>> ...............ready.
>> Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)... ok
>> vmlinuz: attempted DOS system call
>> boot:

This message means something has invoked an interrupt in the range 0x20
to 0x3f, which it should never have done, since that's in the operating
system range.

Given the complaint about vesamenu further down the page, I'm assuming
the VESA BIOS is invoking a DOS interrupt(!!!!)... although it's very
hard to say for sure.

It might be possible to track down by augmenting syslinux to print the
CS:IP of the supposed DOS system call; if this is the VESA BIOS, it
would be in the range C000:xxxx.

This probably would be a useful hack anyway, so I'll just implement it.

-hpa

2008-06-10 23:39:35

by H. Peter Anvin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Problems with edd

[email protected] wrote:
>>
>> Loading vmlinuz...........................................
>> ..............
>>
>> Loading initrd.img........................................
>> .................
>> ...............ready.
>> Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)... ok
>> vmlinuz: attempted DOS system call
>> boot:
>>
>> If I hit return now, the machine goes back to the 'Welcome
>> to Fedora 9!' splash screen.
>>

I have put in syslinux 3.70-pre16 code to print the source of this
message. You may want to try to grab isolinux from this release and
update your CD image to get some useful debugging info out of this.

-hpa

2008-06-11 11:23:24

by Keith Roberts

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Problems with edd

Thanks for the helpfull repies.

Please can you CC me or email directly regarding this
subject, as I'm moving to the Fedora rawhide developrs list
with this one now.

I will post the solution once it has been found to LKML.

Kind Regards

Keith Roberts.

2008-06-11 20:08:38

by Keith Roberts

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Problems with edd

On Tue, 10 Jun 2008, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> To: [email protected]
> From: H. Peter Anvin <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: Problems with edd
>
> [email protected] wrote:
>>>
>>> Loading vmlinuz...........................................
>>> ..............
>>>
>>> Loading initrd.img........................................
>>> .................
>>> ...............ready.
>>> Probing EDD (edd=off to disable)... ok
>>> vmlinuz: attempted DOS system call
>>> boot:
>>>
>>> If I hit return now, the machine goes back to the 'Welcome to Fedora
>>> 9!' splash screen.
>>>
>
> I have put in syslinux 3.70-pre16 code to print the source of this
> message. You may want to try to grab isolinux from this release and
> update your CD image to get some useful debugging info out of this.
>
> -hpa

Not being a kernel guru, I'm not sure how to do that hpa?

Where do I get isolinux from please?

how do I update my CD image?

I'm willing to give this a try if it will sort out the
problem.

Please CC me as I'm off the list now. Can't seem to get back
on again either.

Kind Regards,

Keith

2008-06-11 20:29:46

by H. Peter Anvin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Problems with edd

Keith Roberts wrote:
>>
>> I have put in syslinux 3.70-pre16 code to print the source of this
>> message. You may want to try to grab isolinux from this release and
>> update your CD image to get some useful debugging info out of this.
>>
>> -hpa
>
> Not being a kernel guru, I'm not sure how to do that hpa?
>
> Where do I get isolinux from please?
>

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/Testing/syslinux-3.70-pre16.tar.bz2

> how do I update my CD image?

You will need to run mkisofs with the same options used to generate the
image.

In a pinch, if you can point me to the original ISO I could try to
doctor it.

> I'm willing to give this a try if it will sort out the problem.

That would be useful. This is potentially a previously unreported BIOS
issue which might have a straightforward workaround, so I'm eager to get
the data.

-hpa

2008-06-11 23:52:52

by Keith Roberts

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Problems with edd

On Wed, 11 Jun 2008, H. Peter Anvin wrote:

> To: Keith Roberts <[email protected]>
> From: H. Peter Anvin <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: Problems with edd
>
> Keith Roberts wrote:
>>>
>>> I have put in syslinux 3.70-pre16 code to print the source of this
>>> message. You may want to try to grab isolinux from this release and
>>> update your CD image to get some useful debugging info out of this.
>>>
>>> -hpa
>>
>> Not being a kernel guru, I'm not sure how to do that hpa?
>>
>> Where do I get isolinux from please?
>>
>
> ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/Testing/syslinux-3.70-pre16.tar.bz2
>
>> how do I update my CD image?
>
> You will need to run mkisofs with the same options used to generate the
> image.

OK - thankyou for that, hpa

> In a pinch, if you can point me to the original ISO I could try to doctor
> it.

I originally got mine from:

http://mirror.switch.ch/ftp/mirror/fedora/linux/releases/9/Fedora/i386/iso/Fedora-9-i386-netinst.iso

The sha1sum is:

3b1df20ece05d64c34dd9c64400975b74eded0f2 Fedora-9-i386-netinst.iso

I have also put it on my website, just in case it gets
updated on the mirrors:

http://www.karsites.net/fedora/9/Fedora-9-i386-netinst.iso

obviously same sha1sum ;)

The Fedora guys are following this thread now. I have put
the link to your patch on my Fedora bug report:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=450678

I have never built an iso file before, but I'll read up on
it. My plan was to copy the files from the F9 net-installer
CD to my hard drive, update them with your patch, and then
re-make the iso file and burn that back to CD-R. Would that
work?

>> I'm willing to give this a try if it will sort out the problem.
>
> That would be useful. This is potentially a previously unreported BIOS
> issue which might have a straightforward workaround, so I'm eager to get
> the data.
>
> -hpa

Regards

Keith

2008-06-11 23:56:13

by H. Peter Anvin

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: Problems with edd

Keith Roberts wrote:
>
> The Fedora guys are following this thread now. I have put the link to
> your patch on my Fedora bug report:
>
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=450678
>
> I have never built an iso file before, but I'll read up on it. My plan
> was to copy the files from the F9 net-installer CD to my hard drive,
> update them with your patch, and then re-make the iso file and burn that
> back to CD-R. Would that work?
>

Yes, that should work, assuming the iso file is generated with the same
mkisofs options as the original image.

-hpa