Re: Call For Help: Accessibility support in d-i
tag 242547 + patch Thanks. Eugeniy Meshcheryakov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > The problem is that syslinux incorrectly computes amount of data it > should read to load a kernel. Attached patch fixes this. With this > patch applied I can boot from access floppy. Also tested it with > netboot (PXE) and d-i boot.img. Wow, you rock! Where am I supposed to send the sixpack to. :-) No, really, I owe you something. Juan: Can we get this applied and uploaded ASAP? > I does not understand however why does syslinux works with other > kernels without patch. Me neither, yet... -- CYa, Mario | Debian Developer http://debian.org/> | Get my public key via finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 1024D/7FC1A0854909BCCDBE6C102DDFFC022A6B113E44 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Call For Help: Accessibility support in d-i
The problem is that syslinux incorrectly computes amount of data it should read to load a kernel. Attached patch fixes this. With this patch applied I can boot from access floppy. Also tested it with netboot (PXE) and d-i boot.img. I does not understand however why does syslinux works with other kernels without patch. -- Eugeniy Meshcheryakov Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University Information and Computing Centre http://icc.univ.kiev.ua diff -urN syslinux-2.04/runkernel.inc syslinux-mod/runkernel.inc --- syslinux-2.04/runkernel.inc 2003-04-11 08:44:56.0 +0300 +++ syslinux-mod/runkernel.inc 2004-06-23 10:05:37.0 +0300 @@ -258,8 +258,8 @@ inc si ; plus 1 boot sector shl si,9 ; Convert to bytes mov ecx,8000h ; 32K - sub ecx,esi ; Number of bytes to copy push ecx + sub ecx,esi ; Number of bytes to copy add esi,(real_mode_seg << 4); Pointer to source mov edi,10h ; Copy to address 10h
Re: Call For Help: Accessibility support in d-i
Christian Perrier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> Unfortunately, something seems to have broken recently, and >> the currently generated access floppy images do not boot anymore. >> The boot floppy starts to load normally, and after some time, SYSLINUX reports: >> "Boot failed: Please change disks and press any key to continue." > > After some investigations today, it seems the problem may be narrowed > down to the kernel-image-2.4.xx-speakup udeb. > > I tried to build a regular floppy boot image (make build_floppy_boot) > with this kernel instead of the default flavour by modifying the > needed cfg file. This boot image experimented the reported problem > which rebuilding it again with the usual kernel worked well. The kernel-image-2.4.24-speakup works perfectly fine when used on an already installed system (as a .deb). Additionally, if I just take the "linux" image off the speakup enabled boot disk and put it into lilo.conf, LILO is perfectly happy to boot this kernel. So, are there any known syslinux quirks? AFAICS, this bug only appears if the kernel is booted using SYSLINUX (see #242547). > So the investigation should probably focus on this special kernel > flavour. In combination with SYSLINUX. I really wonder why lilo boots that image fine. Anyone into comparative bootmanagerology? -- CYa, Mario | Debian Developer http://debian.org/> | Get my public key via finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 1024D/7FC1A0854909BCCDBE6C102DDFFC022A6B113E44 pgpn8iTfz4qKW.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Call For Help: Accessibility support in d-i
> Unfortunately, something seems to have broken recently, and > the currently generated access floppy images do not boot anymore. > The boot floppy starts to load normally, and after some time, SYSLINUX reports: > "Boot failed: Please change disks and press any key to continue." After some investigations today, it seems the problem may be narrowed down to the kernel-image-2.4.xx-speakup udeb. I tried to build a regular floppy boot image (make build_floppy_boot) with this kernel instead of the default flavour by modifying the needed cfg file. This boot image experimented the reported problem which rebuilding it again with the usual kernel worked well. So the investigation should probably focus on this special kernel flavour. This topic (not yet solved) revealed to me the existence of the "accessiblity" flavour of d-i. Apart from the problem Mario related (which is imho not far from being RC), we should all more focus and this accessbility variant of Debian Installer. For instance, having it available as an option on the regular CD, if technically possible, would be a great progress. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Call For Help: Accessibility support in d-i
Hi. As some of you might know, d-i already has some rudimentary support for people with disabilities. That currently includes speakup, a kernel patch to enable the usage of hardware based speech synthesizers during installation (connected via a serial port) and BRLTTY, a user-space solution to use a braille display (tactile reading) during installation. Both of those screen readers are currently included in the "access" floppy flavour. The boot image uses kernel-image-2.4.xx-speakup as a kernel, and the root image includes the brltty-udeb. Unfortunately, something seems to have broken recently, and the currently generated access floppy images do not boot anymore. The boot floppy starts to load normally, and after some time, SYSLINUX reports: "Boot failed: Please change disks and press any key to continue." Since this is a syslinux error, I am a bit at a loss as to how to debug this. I am calling for help from anyone who might know why this is happening. It has definitely worked in the past, but since I don't have the time to retest the access flavour every week or so, I do not know when it actually broke. How to test? You might be asking: "How can I help without special hardware?" You can boot the access floppy flavour without any special accessibility hardware, just don't specify any speakup_synth/speakup_ser or brltty kernel boot options, you should get a normal text-based installation menu which uses the cdebconf-text frontend. If you've got any idea why boot fails and how this could be fixed, please let me know. It'd be sad if we would have to drop the access flavour again. What remains to be done: Future tasks for improving accessibility of d-i would be to generate an alternative initrd for CD booting which basically would mimick the access floppy configuration. Using image names, the user would be able to select normal install or accessibility enabled install from one and the same CD. I personally don't own a CD burner (yet?), so help in this direction would be welcome too. It is also probably the single most asked question by prospective blind users: "Can I boot from CD and still get accessibility support?" Why a special kernel? I've been asked several times in the past why speakup needs to be in its own kernel image and why I didn't try to get it into the standard debian kernel image. The explanation is fairly simple: speakup is a quite intrusive patch. Upstream has attempted to get it into mainline at several points in time in the past, but it wasn't accepted. I wouldn't want the Debian standard kernel to include the speakup patch because I do not trust it fully for anything other than desktop machines. -- Thanks for your help, Mario | Debian Developer http://debian.org/> | Get my public key via finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | 1024D/7FC1A0854909BCCDBE6C102DDFFC022A6B113E44 pgpkF0Yw9A3Vi.pgp Description: PGP signature
