[ipxe-devel] 486 with a Realtek 8139

[Nikolai Zhubr]

16.05.2021 13:09, Michael Brown:
[...]
> To be fair: "cd src ; make" would have built you the exact bin/ipxe.pxe
> target that I already suggested using.

Sure, but my point was that normally, such a binary would only be of 
interest for just some quick test/demo/debugging puposes, because hardly 
anyone would want to burn an image containing support for all possible 
controllers with all possible boot protocols for everyday use, therefore 
a consistent step-by-step instruction for building a typical custom 
image containing some selected features would be helpfull, I was 
certainly expecting something like that near the top of main page.

> Debug builds are fairly specialised (and not something that most users

This is true.

> will need), debugging a hang at this stage of operation is even more
> specialised, and getting iPXE working on a 30-year-old CPU is definitely
> well into the depths of obscure corner cases.

I certainly understand that 486 is not very usual currently. But it is 
itself just a target platform, not a corner case. As such, it can be 
either supported or not. The board in question is a regular one of that 
time, nothing special.

> I'm asking for this testing in order to eliminate problems potentially
> caused by interaction with your Etherboot ROM.

Yes, this is reasonable enough. As harddisk image somehow failed to be 
recognized by this board, I'll try to look into attaching a floppy drive 
(so a real fun starts)


Thank you,

Regards,
Nikolai


> Thanks,
>
> Michael
>