Re: [Etherboot-users] Re: http://rom-o-matic.net updated with Etherboot-5.4.0

Marty Connor wrote:

> Does this actually work for you?
>
>     Etherboot-5.4.0 -> memtest
>
Yes, I downloaded a .zdsk image from rom-o-matic 5 minutes ago and tried 
again on my desktop (one of those cheap all-in-one motherboard with 
sis730 chipset, sis900 nic embedded). Memtest still runs as before.

> fails for me (booting from a floppy).  It attempts to load the ELF 
> file, but memtest claims it gets an unexpected interrupt and aborts.
>
> Perhaps the ELF loading code is not working properly in 5.4.0.
>
Or perhaps it's bios-dependent.

>
> If anyone has good reasons for keeping NBI support, and is willing to 
> support mknbi-* and NBI loading in Etherboot, going forward, I'd 
> really like to hear from you.  Right now, as things stand, it seems 
> unsupportable from a practical standpoint, and PXELINUX seems able to 
> do what most people need done, and is well-supported.
>
Before 5.3.x, ie. before pxe support was added to etherboot, nbi was 
about my only option because pxe roms were not always available. 
Personally, I do not like the way in which nbi binds the kernel and the 
initrd together. If I have m different kernels and n different initrds, 
then quite likely, I would end up with (m x n) images in order to be 
able to pick one from the (m x n) kernel-initrd combinations at boot 
time. With pxelinux (grub, and the like), I would only need m kernels + 
n initrds, saving a lot of diskspace and administrative work. That 
having said, I didn't switch to pxelinux when 5.3.x and 5.4.0 were out. 
Why? Just because I was not sure whether the tftp code in pxelinux 
supports (or will support) multicast as etherboot's does, although I 
never really tried to assess what good multicast does to my network traffic.

>
> Debugging ELF support is something we'll be working on in 5.5.  Feel 
> free to join in.  Maybe we can figure this out together.
>
As I said before, I'll be glad to jump in whenever I think I have any 
idea to share with the folks here, then disappear like nothing has happen :)

isac



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