Re: CRC errors decompressing kernel on boot

[Pedro Soria Rodriguez <psoria@hispafuentes.com>]

I ended up finding a solution to my problem myself, so I will post it
here for the record.
First, a summary of the problem I had with kernel 2.4.20-ac2 and
2.4.21-pre5-ac2 and Lilo 22.4:

On Thu, 2003-03-13 at 16:05, Pedro Soria Rodriguez wrote:
> I am getting a CRC error when the kernel is being decompressed after
> loading.  It is intermitent, but I can force it to occur on every boot
> if I type on the keyboard while the kernel is loaded (before being 
> decompressed). 
> It happens on a certain machine, 
> with USB keyboard, and not with a PS2 keyboard.
> It does not happen on other machines with USB or PS2 keyboards.

The problem turned out to be a combination of LILO and an apparently
buggy BIOS. 

I switched from using LILO to using GRUB as a boot loader, and the
problem went away.  I found that loading a kernel with SYSLINUX (from
CDROM), LoadLin (from DOS), PXE (over the net) all works fine.  It is
only when loading it with LILO when the CRC error appears.  I read
somewhere on the net that the problem may be related to a buggy BIOS in
the machine.   

The problem was the USB keyb + buggy BIOS + LILO + large kernel    
(apparently this does not happen on small kernels, as I read somewhere
else on the net).

cheers,

--
Pedro Soria-Rodríguez