Bug 118165

Summary: Install DISK 1 to 2 , message problem. OLD BIOS issue , not applicable to new PC's
Product: [openSUSE] SUSE LINUX 10.0 Reporter: jerry hodson <jerry>
Component: InstallationAssignee: Olaf Dabrunz <odabrunz>
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX QA Contact: Klaus Kämpf <kkaempf>
Severity: Major    
Priority: P5 - None CC: jerry
Version: RC 1   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: i686   
OS: SuSE Pro 9.1   
Whiteboard:
Found By: Beta-Customer Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---

Description jerry hodson 2005-09-21 01:40:30 UTC
Install 10.0 RC1 over 9.1.
The end of disk one should stop and say Remove all removable media , before it
reboots the PC.
This is because millions of old legacy PCs not properly designed to comply to el
torito spec and boots thru with out a key depression , at "Booting from CD"

However , all new systems 1998 to prsent are going to work OK.
just my idea , do not know how important this is to legacy people.

good day. jerry
Comment 1 Lukas Ocilka 2005-09-21 07:30:27 UTC
This is sure a duplicate of another enhancement but I cannot find it. Warning
about removing CD might be good point. On the other hand, even if you leave the
CD inside, it should boot your system by default...
Comment 2 jerry hodson 2005-09-21 17:51:30 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> This is sure a duplicate of another enhancement but I cannot find it. Warning
> about removing CD might be good point. On the other hand, even if you leave 
the
> CD inside, it should boot your system by default...  (yes, on new machines)

Not on old (millions of legacy systems build in 1997 ( the year CDR started 
booting for the first time)  El-Torito (ect) spec was incorrectly built in to 
millions of PCS (award Bios). EG: ASus PentiumIII MOBOS and many others.

If the CD is set as first boot item , all these machines boot the CD1 over and 
over , when at CD1 to CD2 transition.  ( even old m$ OS installs , said , 
Please remove all bootable media and press any key)  

Good machines (all modern do) do what is is called BOOT Through per spec.
allowing the new mini kernal on HDx to boot , instead of the CD1 disk.

It is not a serious problem ,just  dumb legacy issues.
If someone wants to put Linux on ,as  a NO GUI (CL) and run a small server on 
an old slow pentium 500 , they will mostly stumble on to this BIOS bug.
It really is a BIOS bug. sad to say.

This release is fantastic , I have 20 friends trying it now.
it finally supports USB on a HUB, WOW !

I hope I have helped you and not confused you beyond reason.

Please forgive me for asking to hide BIOS bugs, [ a silly business, for sure ]
good day , jerry h.









Comment 3 Jiri Srain 2005-09-29 11:56:42 UTC
Andreas, do you want it to be solved somehow for 10.1? 
 
The only idea I have is to add possibility to force user to push a key before 
reboot (eg. via kernel parameter during installation). 
Comment 4 Andreas Jaeger 2005-09-29 13:58:37 UTC
I suggest to show a message like the following - please talk with Sigi about
this as well:

The system gets rebooted now and then installation continues.  Either remove the
CDs (which is advisable if you cannot boot from CD1) or use "boot from harddisk"
in the bootloader menu.
Comment 5 Jiri Srain 2005-09-30 07:46:35 UTC
Sigi, what do you need about this usability issue? 
Comment 6 Jiri Srain 2005-11-11 09:18:24 UTC
Sigi, please, comment on the usability and then reassign back to me...
Comment 7 Siegfried Olschner 2005-11-11 15:05:45 UTC
If I remember correct we have a message box with a kind of count down before the automatic reboot. Perhaps we can place a information message there. 
But this would mean that a problem of some "old" machines would affect the "modern" auto-reboot.

I prefer a better solution.
Check the age of the BIOS in the machine and if <1988 then (and only then) stop the installation flow and pop up the message in the center of the screen.

   +-------------------------------------------+
   | (Icon)  The system will reboot now.       |
   |                                           |
   |         Please remove all media from      |
   |         the drives and click OK           |
   |         after this.                       |
   |                                           |
   |                   [OK]                    |
   +-------------------------------------------+
Comment 8 Jiri Srain 2005-12-15 12:07:40 UTC
Reasigning to new maintainer
Comment 9 Torsten Duwe 2006-04-03 11:24:03 UTC
Let's say you automatically reboot after a countdown on "newer" machines, and stop until click/keypress on "older" machines. You'll make a very few users happy, who forget to replace their CD or are unable to boot their server from network , and you'll make at least as much people unhappy, those for whom it worked before, and who now have to manually intervene.

In the fewer cases this might be a good idea, but not generally. Especially since this really is a BIOS problem, I suggest WONTFIX.