Re: [9fans] pxe booting net4801

[erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net>]

> I can't get a Soekris net4801 box to boot Plan 9 via PXE.
>
> On my Plan 9 fileserver (which also runs ip/dhcpd and ip/tftpd), I
> created /cfg/pxe/<MAC of the first interface on the net4801>, which is
> almost identical to the file I use for a diskless terminal. The only
> differences are that I put mouseport, monitor and vgasize in
> comment. The remaining things, bootfile and nobootprompt are the same
> as for the terminal. I first tried to boot /386/9pc.gz and then
> /386/9pccpu.gz (see below). I also added *nomp=1 but that doesn't seem
> to get it any further. The console output looks as follows:

the output stops after the jump to the kernel proper.  so
either the jump the kernel, or the very early boot process before
the "Plan 9" print hung, or the serial console isn't working in the
kernel proper.

have you set up the serial console in your pxe'd plan9.ini?
that would cover the second case.  if you're using the distribution
9load, serial baud setting is via baud=.  the kernel baud setting
is , e.g. "console=0 b19200".  i changed 9load in 9atom to recognize
kernel-style console configuration when i was booting soekris
boxen.

i haven't used a soekris for quite some time.  (too slow!)  iirc,
some versions of bios are more friendly than others.  iirc 1.33
was a problem with plan 9 on my particular hardware.

as a wild guess, one might disable the functions in cga.c
obviously, there's no cga.

- erik