f19alpha, hang "booting a command list"

[Chris Murphy]

On Apr 25, 2013, at 9:56 PM, John Reiser <jreiser at bitwagon.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Eek! The BIOS-e820 shows a severely fragmented memory map (lines 6 through 81).

It seems to be a consequence of EFI.

> Which BIOS manufacturer, and what is the date?  

Apple Inc. MacBookPro4,1/Mac-F42C89C8, BIOS    MBP41.88Z.00C1.B03.0802271651 02/27/08

There were never any firmware updates for this model post release.

> You are booting (U)EFI, right?

Yes.


> 
> 
>> This strikes me as either a GRUB problem, or a dracut/initramfs problem, because a 3.9.x kernel and initramfs built on f18 boots OK. So I don't know that this is even really a kernel problem.
> 
> I'd bet on GRUB.

I just tried the GRUB I'm using for Fedora 18, redirecting it to load the configfile from the USB stick. The same thing happens, except no "Booting a command list" message. Just a black screen, no text, nothing. 1.5 minutes of USB stick flashing, then it stops. No key causes a change. The computer has to be forced off.

The commands linuxefi and initrdefi are reportedly not used by upstream GRUB. I'm not sure what they do. If those commands enable EFI STUB boot loading, then I wonder if the problem is with EFI STUB in this kernel build. I guess what I need to do is install the same F19 kernel on F18 and see if I can boot that.

What is the exact kernel F19 is using? Since I can't boot it, and its name on the stick is just vmlinuz, I can't tell what it is.


Chris Murphy