extlinux bootloader
#1
Hello Piners

Which bootloader shipped with the "january" dispatch of PBP, with default debian mate?  Extlinux? 

When I looked in /boot, I saw directory called extlinux, and in that was file "extlinux.conf," whose contents reminded me of uefi on x64, because of the append line.

I noticed it had entries for PINEBOOKPRO, and PINEBOOKPRO-prev-kernel.

Without any docs, I intuitively created another entry for PINEBOOKPRO-SLARM64, and changed the append line to root=/dev/mmcblk0p2, as well as changed the default to my new entry, and adding slarm64 to the menu line.

I was kind of amazed that it worked, and booted slarm64 (unofficial slackware for arm) from the microsd (still using the kernel image and dtb that shipped).


I see lots of posts and instructions about flashing u-boot to SPI, but that doesn't seem necessary to boot from microsd.

On x64, most hardware have some kind of key that you can hold down during boot to bring up a boot menu.

Does this extlinux bootloader have a way to bring up its menu like that?  It has an entry  in extlinux.conf called menu.  It looked like this:

Code:
menu title boot prev kernel

but when booting, I never saw a menu, and I lucked out because the default worked.  But if I wanted to try PINEBOOKPRO-prev-kernel, how would I select it at boot time?  I tried "TAB" and "ESC" and "F2" and "F10" and then gave up guessing.

Perhaps such a boot menu would only be available over the serial console, for which I haven't ordered the cable yet.

It is booting the way I want for the moment, but I would like to understand more about extlinux.  It has a website, but I didn't see anything about the boot menu there.

Does anyone know a way to manually select target at boot time (with this extlinux bootloader that shipped)?


Messages In This Thread
extlinux bootloader - by globaltree - 04-29-2020, 12:10 PM
RE: extlinux bootloader - by tophneal - 04-29-2020, 12:54 PM
RE: extlinux bootloader - by globaltree - 05-02-2020, 07:49 PM
RE: extlinux bootloader - by wdt - 05-02-2020, 11:13 PM

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