Bugzilla – Bug 211094
Can't Navigate Boot Menu After Booting From Install DVD
Last modified: 2007-02-21 02:23:44 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
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.
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.
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.
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)?
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.
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.
My machine has 1GB of memory.
I forgot: please attach a kernel log. Like /var/log/boot.msg.
Is a kernel log from a SLED10 install alright?
Doesn't matter, any will do.
Created attachment 101267 [details] Start-up log
Comment on attachment 101267 [details] Start-up log Attached boot.msg...
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.
I was able to disable the reserved memory in the BIOS and the cd is booting correctly now. Thank you, Steffen.
no problem
*** Bug 228508 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***