Arch Linux

"Boot existing OS" works.
"Boot normally" does not work. The argument for LOCALBOOT should be a device type (example: 0x80 for hd0) or -1 to continue boot secuence determined by BIOS. Anyway it does not work on all BIOSes.

hm you're right. "Boot existing OS" works.

what does not work on all bioses? the devicetype or -1 ?

LOCALBOOT -1 does not work on all BIOSes.

Anyway putting a LOCALBOOT 0x80, is equivalent to chain.32 with hd0 (option "Boot existing OS") => so I think is a bit redundant => "Boot normally" can be removed.

i see. thanks a lot Gerardo.

you are welcome :)

the problem is still present on 201005 iso. Tried in two scenarios, one in virtualbox where i have a separate boot partition and grub installed in sda, in which the menu is working.

on my real hardware i don't have a separate boot partition, having only one harddrive and grub installed in sda. The menu doesn't work, is displaying something but is refreshing to fast and is coming back to the menu. Tried to modify the options from hd0 0 in hd0 or hd0 1 doesn't help.

FOUND IT:
unknown keyword in configuration file: IPAPPEND

odd, here works without issue. (tested both archlinux-2010.05.07-netinstall-i686.iso and archlinux-2010.05.07-netinstall-dual.iso) on virtualbox and real machine.

ps: about unknown keyword don't worry this is because is isolinux.cfg is parsed via "syslinux" and is only recognized by pxelinux. unknows keywords are ignored.
(I will change this to "IPAPPEND 0" to "#IPAPPEND 1" and in archiso-pxe-server script instead o changing from "0" to "1" just uncomment the line.)

any way i can debug more?

gerardo, could it be that http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Archiso-as-pxe-server still needs to be updated for the ipappend uncommenting?

@Ionut: There is no much more to do other with chain.32 other than playing with "hd#" mode [#1].

when you talk about menu: are you talking about syslinux menu or grub menu from your installed system? when you talk about boot partition you have a bootloader on it or simply you talk about /boot with kernel?

chain.32 hd0 0 (default) Will load the MBR and pass the control to it. So if you have grub installed on "sda", don't worry about what is your /boot partition.
chain.32 hd0 1 Will load the bootsector in the first partition and pass the control to it. This is if you have installed grub on "sda1", again don't worry about where is /boot.

The only thing important for chain.32 is "where is the bootloader code located".

On virtualbox: you can see the menu from syslinux? you can pass the control to bootloader installed on the virtualized system and system boot fine?
On your real hardware: try to escape from syslinux menu "esc key". Then type "existing" what do you see?


@Dieter: I will update the wiki for next iso images that include the patch that I sent fews hours ago to mailing list. Pushed on [#2]

[#1] http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Comboot/chain.c32
[#2] http://github.com/djgera/archiso/tree/djgera

@Dieter: I added a comment anyway and fix other issue with script in the wiki ;)

@Gerando when i said menu i'm talking about syslinux menu. maybe i should try to explain better.

virtualbox and my computer have grub installed in mbr. the only thing different is that in virtualbox there is a separate /boot partition.
on my computer using "existing" it brings me back to syslinux menu and i never seen the grub menu.

i guess that chain.32 is buggy or my bios and it can't load mbr and pass control to it.

on real machine your are using dvd or usb to boot archiso?

If you are using usb, try "hd1" instead, no need second argument, since your boot code from GRUB is on MBR ;)
Maybe your bios swap your harddisk when booting via usb, so usb become "hd0"... Also try "swap" option.

in resume:
hd0
hd0 swap
hd1
hd1 swap
...

i'm using usb.

hd0, hd0 swap doesn't work. it brings me back to syslinux menu
hd1 works and grub menu is loading but i had to modify root (hd0,1) in root (hd1,1)
hd1 swap is freezing at loading stage.

so i guess we can't really fix this issue. maybe using a cd will work but i can't test it. i'm going tomorrow to buy a cd for that.

note that this is the only issue currently pending for the release.
so maybe try with a cd, and if that doesn't work and Gerardo doesn't know how to fix it, I just build the new images in their current state.

so, more then 24hours have passed. can i just postphone this issue or should i wait for further followups on this issue?

sorry for the delay, works with cd

so...
1) with cd -> works
2) with usb -> works if you change it to hd1, but your grub gets confused

I guess it's not possible to have 1 entry that works on all scenarios. Nor to avoid confusing grub.

AFAICT, all options in isolinux work fine now, right? (I test with images from http://build.archlinux.org/isos/)

Yes, anyway will work depending on BIOS/bootloader scheme. Maybe I will add another method (as alternative) if bios support it. (chainloader +1)