Bug 211094

Summary: Can't Navigate Boot Menu After Booting From Install DVD
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE 10.2 Reporter: Jakob Podjan <podjan>
Component: InstallationAssignee: Steffen Winterfeldt <snwint>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact: Jiri Srain <jsrain>
Severity: Normal    
Priority: P5 - None CC: podjan, xblackfire
Version: Alpha 5   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: x86   
OS: SUSE Other   
Whiteboard:
Found By: Other Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---
Attachments: tiny test iso
Start-up log

Description Jakob Podjan 2006-10-09 16:13:03 UTC
In openSUSE 10.2 Alpha 5, after booting from the install DVD I am unable to navigate the boot menu to choose from any of the options. The menu looks normal except for a small black box in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. The box contains two columns, one titled 'data', the other titled 'prog', each has a number of hex values listed below it. When I press a key the values decrease until the value of the row labeled '1'  becomes zero, at which time the boot menu disappears and I'm left with only a black console screen and a 'boot:' prompt.

I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I have two video cards as I don't have the same problem on similar systems. The on-board video (ATi Rage XL) cannot be disabled in the BIOS, the monitor is connected to a Nvidia 6800 GS AGP. Please let me know if I can provide any more info. Thanks.

Jakob Podjan
Comment 1 Steffen Winterfeldt 2006-10-10 09:35:57 UTC
Hm, no, I don't think it's your video cards.
More likely the syslinux update I made in alphas 5. :-(

The black window you see is a debug window. What are the numbers after
'ip' and 'err'?. If you happen to have a camera ready, a screenshot would
be really nice.
Comment 2 Steffen Winterfeldt 2006-10-10 09:51:22 UTC
Created attachment 101095 [details]
tiny test iso

Please give this test iso a try. You can't really start anything with it but for memtest,
but chances are the menu works.
Comment 3 Jakob Podjan 2006-10-11 03:00:06 UTC
I booted from the test iso but had the same results as Alpha 5.

From the test iso the err and ip values are:
err e
ip 5e2d:     4.7

From Alpha 5:
err e
ip 6c7e:     e.7

I had a similar issue with SUSE 10.1 and SLED10 but didn't file a bug because I was able to get to a text menu by hitting <escape>.

If you still need it, I can attach a picture within the next day or so.
Comment 4 Steffen Winterfeldt 2006-10-11 09:13:12 UTC
This is very strange. In both cases it runs out of memory.

Please boot either alpha5 or the test iso and hold down SHIFT while the boot
loader starts. This will put it in debug mode. Confirm the first two
questions with 'y'. Then it will print three lines 'memory area 0-2'.
Could you post the numbers from those lines?

As you did have the same problem with 10.1 already, did it work with any
of the previous 10.2 alphas (or did you just try alpha5)?
Comment 5 Jakob Podjan 2006-10-11 12:18:54 UTC
After confirming the first 2 questions it prints out:

Initializing gfx...

mem area 0:0x00052c10-0x0009fc00

I only shows that one line. The next screen ,however, gives lines 0-12 with more memory addresses. Would you like this information as well?

This is the first 10.2 alpha I have tested.
Comment 6 Steffen Winterfeldt 2006-10-11 12:46:57 UTC
No no, that's not necessary.

Ok, that explains the effect. At least it's not related to the
last syslinux update.

What's the memory size of your machine, btw? The described problem would
indicate less than 16MB, which I seriously doubt is the case.
Comment 7 Jakob Podjan 2006-10-11 12:51:01 UTC
My machine has 1GB of memory.
Comment 8 Steffen Winterfeldt 2006-10-11 12:51:33 UTC
I forgot: please attach a kernel log. Like /var/log/boot.msg.
Comment 9 Jakob Podjan 2006-10-11 12:55:24 UTC
Is a kernel log from a SLED10 install alright?
Comment 10 Steffen Winterfeldt 2006-10-11 13:06:33 UTC
Doesn't matter, any will do.
Comment 11 Jakob Podjan 2006-10-11 21:51:39 UTC
Created attachment 101267 [details]
Start-up log
Comment 12 Jakob Podjan 2006-10-11 21:53:14 UTC
Comment on attachment 101267 [details]
Start-up log

Attached boot.msg...
Comment 13 Steffen Winterfeldt 2006-10-12 10:33:25 UTC
There is a 1 MB memory hole at 15MB:

<4> BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 0000000000f00000 (usable)
<4> BIOS-e820: 0000000000f00000 - 0000000001000000 (reserved)
<4> BIOS-e820: 0000000001000000 - 000000003ffd0000 (usable)

The boot loader will use only memory up to that hole. Can you disable it
in your BIOS? Else you will run into problems as the current 10.2 initrd
+ kernel will soon be too big for your machine.
Comment 14 Jakob Podjan 2006-10-12 12:08:51 UTC
I was able to disable the reserved memory in the BIOS and the cd is booting correctly now.  Thank you, Steffen.
Comment 15 Steffen Winterfeldt 2006-10-12 12:12:41 UTC
no problem
Comment 16 Jeronimo Martinez 2007-02-21 02:23:44 UTC
*** Bug 228508 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***