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  • From: James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] Xvesa and mouse problems
  • Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 14:19:10 -0600 (CST)

On Thu, 2 Mar 2006, sindi keesan wrote:

Can you explain in simple terms where/how to get syslinux and install it
to use as a boot manager (boot to DOS or linux)? Will it do SCSI boot?
We are unable to boot to a DOS scsi disk in three computers with AMIBIOS
set to boot from SCSI first. We can boot to SCSI linux drive with loadlin
and David's scsi 2.4.31 kernel.

Take a look here: http://syslinux.zytor.com/faq.php#harddrive . I never tried doing this, so I can't add anything beyond the directions they give there. It was quite simple to install syslinux to a floppy, and they say the procedure is essentially the same for installing to HD. The hard part for me was figuring out the syntax for the syslinux.conf file: it's not spelled out clearly how to arrange this file in any of the literature I consulted. I ended up using the trial-and-error method to get a working config file. Be aware that syslinux suffers from the 1024 cylinder limitation. I'm not sure what this means specifically: e.g., let's say your DOS partition is the first partition, but your Linux partition starts beyond the 1024 cylinder limit (after ca. 1GB). Your BL kernel and ramdisk reside on the DOS partition. Couldn't you still boot Linux from that first DOS partition? By the time control is turned over to the kernel, the 1024 cylinder limit is no longer a factor. I'm wondering if, in practical terms, this doesn't mean that you will be unable to direct syslinux to boot a kernel that resides on a Linux partition that starts beyond the 1024 cylinder limit. I can only speculate, having never tried it. I don't see anything there about scsi.

Did your laptop have a DOS mouse driver installed?

I don't think so. The floppy was just a barebones FreeDOS boot floppy. I had to put an autoexec.bat and config.sys on it myself.

James

On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, James Miller wrote:

Another possible resolution for Xvesa startup problems owing to DOS config
files that I've run across lately is to use syslinux. I was fiddling with
a laptop on which Xvesa would not start recently when booting from DOS
(FreeDOS boot floppy), despite the fact that no memory management was
being used. I finally decided to put syslinux on a floppy and tried
booting from it: Xvesa then started just fine. It is possible to boot
even a DOS hard drive partition using syslinux. It's not recommended, but
it apparently does work (I didn't try it, but the syslinux site seemed to
indicate it could work). Maybe booting the system using syslinux is the
way to go to get around these DOS/Xvesa conflicts. A boot menu could be
configured that would allow booting into either DOS or BL.

James




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