[ipxe-devel] iPXE working on 486(386?) hardware, hanging on init_librm

[Richard Moore]

Hi, 

Just wondering if anyone was interested in getting iPXE working on real
486(386?) hardware?
( Following on from last years thread "[ipxe-devel] 486 with a Realtek
8139" https://lists.ipxe.org/pipermail/ipxe-devel/2021-May/007441.html )


With the recent rise in interest in retro pc's, being able to PXE boot
and chain to an HTTP site w/software on the internet may be of
increasing interest to people? (diagnostic tools etc) - or perhaps just
a challenge for someone here :) 

Unfortunately qemu works when setting cpu to 486 whereas real hardware
doesn't, so not a helpful tool. 

On my 486 booting from floppy disk image, I have got as far as Loading
.... (see below) with a hard hang on 'init_librm' from debug
output.(built with DEBUG=libprefix,dskprefix) so presumably the problem
is switching from real mode to protected mode?
https://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=17401 

Other pertinent previous posts relating to this;
https://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=10713
https://forum.ipxe.org/showthread.php?tid=25593 

Booting via ne.zdsk floppy or via 32k ne.zrom burned on a Realtek 8019AS
boot ROM ISA based card (ne2000 compatible) I have it working at least
as far as hanging after downloading pxelinux.0 using etherboot 5.4.4 -
(when the first release of gPXE (0.9.4) came out it was broken,
seemingly at the point it is still broken at.) 

Happy to do leg work testing iPXE on real 486/386 if anyone is
interested, afraid the assembly is beyond me! 

Cheers 

Rich
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