[ipxe-devel] kexec: booting to the real mode iPXE

[H. Peter Anvin]

On 04/08/2013 03:28 AM, Anton D. Kachalov wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> I would like to know is it possible to boot to the real-mode iPXE with native drivers and PXE stack to chain to the e.g. DOS with network support.
> Linux build of iPXE allows only Linux images. The "lkrn" build is not compatible with "kexec" that requires "bzImage" instead of "zImage" format. Fast hack of kexec tool didn't get it works.
> 
> I would like to reduce reboot cycle to boot directly to DOS from Linux with network support or big RAM disk (32MB). Grub4dos doesn't trick well on most modern server's hardware.
> 


Switching to bzImage would have another benefit: it would work better
with systems which have less low RAM.  zImage has to load a chunk at
0x90000 which is problematic on newer systems.

	-hpa

-- 
H. Peter Anvin, Intel Open Source Technology Center
I work for Intel.  I don't speak on their behalf.