Boot problems & zero page Was: [PATCH] Increase number of e820 entries hard limit from 32 to 128

["David Balažic" <david.balazic@hermes.si>]

Andi Kleen <ak <at> suse.de> writes:

> The last time I tried to extend the zero page (with a longer command line)
> it broke lilo on systems with EDID support and CONFIG_EDID enabled.
> Make sure you test that case.

Hi!

I (and other) had problems, that may be related to this. Can you look into it ?

What happened was :
linux boot had a delay of 10..30..90..infinite seconds, depending on command
line length and certain disk related BIOS settings.
GRUB was the loader. The delay went away after disabling CONFIG_EDD.
It was also "fixed" by downgrading the BIOS version.

It would be really cool if you could inject some wisdom in the issue ;-)

For details, see the LKML archives :

"EDD code causes long boot delay"
<http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=108788699100001&r=1&w=2>

"[PATCH 2.6.9-rc3-mm2] EDD: use EXTENDED READ command, add CONFIG_EDD_SKIP_MBR"
<http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/10/4/239>

"[PATCH 2.6] EDD: add edd=off and edd=skipmbr options"
<http://lkml.org/lkml/2004/11/23/293>

Kind regards,
David Balazic