2-minute delay before booting when CONFIG_EDD=y

[Łukasz Halman]

After successful installation of hoary, and no problems with livecd, there is a
problem with booting installed system. After selecting hoary 2.6.10-5-k7 in
grub's menu it reports that kernel and initrd is found, also show s lines
'savedefaults' and 'boot' and hangs. Nothing is happening for over 2 minutes and
after that system normally boots with any errors. Livecd doesn't have this problem.

I tried 2.6.10 and 2.6.11 kernels from hoary repository, both k7 and 386
versions. No difference.

System specs:
AthlonXP 2500+, 1GB DDR400
GigaByte GA-7VAXP Ultra (KT400)
Radeon 9600Pro

Hoary is installed on second harddrive plugged into additional on-board Promise
PDC20276 controller. And is respectively /dev/hde2 and (hd1,1) in linux/grub.

[Łukasz Halman (lukasz-halman)]

Problem doesn't exist when booting with lilo.

[Łukasz Halman (lukasz-halman)]

Problem is caused by 'Enable Video Mode Handling Helper' kernel option
(CONFIG_FB_MODE_HELPERS). Disabling it solves issue.

[Steven Ellis (bugzilla-stevencherie)]

I Have similar problems with my GA-7VAXP motherboard setup.

It might be worth referencing the following forum threads

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=226328
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=226304

Problem goes away if I disable the extra PDC20276 ide controller.
Might it also help to say that I have an NVIDIA TNT2-M64 graphics card, If the
problem really lies with CONFIG_FB_MODE_HELPERS=y then it might be a combination
of graphics card and Promise Raid Controler.

[Steven Ellis (bugzilla-stevencherie)]

Well i've just tried a custom kernel build disabling CONFIG_FB_MODE_HELPERS=y,
and I still have the same boot time problems.

Just running a new kernel compile that builds in the Promise pdc202xx_new and
Via via82cxxx drivers in directly, rather than using modules. I'll see how well
that goes tonight.

[Steven Ellis (bugzilla-stevencherie)]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Well i've just tried a custom kernel build disabling CONFIG_FB_MODE_HELPERS=y,
> and I still have the same boot time problems.
>
> Just running a new kernel compile that builds in the Promise pdc202xx_new and
> Via via82cxxx drivers in directly, rather than using modules. I'll see how well
> that goes tonight.
>

Same problems with building the ide drivers in as static rather than modules.
Also the same issues exist with the newest official ubuntu 2.6.10 kernel release.

Need some fresh ideas on what to try next

[Łukasz Halman (lukasz-halman)]

POSSIBLE SOLUTION FOUND! [works for me, needs confirmation]

I tracked down differences between my kernel config [working] and original
ubuntu 2.6.10-5-k7 config. The option that causes this enormous delay during
boot-up is "BIOS Enhanced Disk Drive calls determine boot disk". Turning this
option on/off make kernel booting normaly/with_delay resectively.

One may wonder why is it enabled in default distro kernel anyway. Here a note
from kernel config:

│ This option is experimental and is known to fail to boot on some
│ obscure configurations. Most disk controller BIOS vendors do
│ not yet implement this feature.

[Steven Ellis (bugzilla-stevencherie)]

Found a further reference to the problem at
http://hulllug.principalhosting.net/archive/index.php/t-22931.html

I'll try booting with the following tonight
1. Custom K7 kernel with CONFIG_EDD disabled
2. The latest stock i386 kernel that also has CONFIG_EDD disabled.

Any pressing reason why we have this option enabled anyway?

[Fabio Massimo Di Nitto (fabbione)]

This will be fixed in the next breezy kernel upload.

Fabio

PS: next time don't mail me directly. bugzilla requests has to stay in bugzilla.

[Charles Majola (chmj)]

fixed in 2.6.12-4.4

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Having the edd information available would be helpfull for #1750 (finding the
bios device order for grub). Maybe we can have a look after breezy at this again?