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

[Richard Moore]

Hi Nikolai,

Thank you for the reply, I had tried that from your original thread last 
year - it certainly lets pxelinux.0 and a menu load (either from .zdsk 
or .zrom) but nothing after that seems to load, for example memtest86+ 
v4.10 (last version that works on a 486) just goes back to the menu and 
doesn't seem to execute. Also trying to load lpxelinux.0 in place of 
pxelinux.0 will just cause a hang.

It would be nice if iPXE could be modified to work, presumably not much 
needs modifying if your patch for etherboot is pretty much everything?

Cheers

Rich




On 2022-01-27 00:43, Nikolai Zhubr wrote:
> Hi Richard,
> 
> 26.01.2022 13:33, Richard Moore:
>> 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 
>> )
> 
> For legacy etherboot, here is a fix that works for me:
> 
> https://github.com/zhubr/etherboot/commit/888fc9d0bd4187605978088dc4c2b3ca1a694bf8
> 
> For iPXE this fix is unnecessary but still last time I tried iPXE
> would hang on 486 for some reason.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Nikolai
> 
>> 
>> 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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