Today I was over at a testing session to try out a variety of vendors
desktop machines which we are considering.
Since I wanted to know which versions of Linux (most specfically SL) might
run on them I took over a handful of CDs including:
SL308 install disk1 (i386)
SL308 install disk1 (x86_64)
SL44 livecd (i386)
SL44 livecd (x86_64)
SL5alpha livecd (i386)
I took the SL308 install disks because there arn't livecd images :-)
On most systems I looked at I got the expected behaviour -- either the
kernels/system recognised enough hardware to work or didn't.
However on the two Dell GX745 machines (different cases) systems, all the
livecd versions failed before even loading the kernels. When booting from
the CDs it never got as far as the ISOLINUX prompt and just rebooted the
machine right away (if it displayed anything it did so too briefly to
see).
I should add that the same CDs worked ok on several other boxes including
a Dell GX740 though the livecd stuff failed to find the CD device on that
machine...
Back with the GX745 boxes I could boot from other CDs including the SL308
install disks without problems (not that SL3 supports SATA CD drives so I
can't get very far -- but the kernel etc get loaded fine). I'll try again
at some point with SL44/SL5 install disks, but I didn't have those with me
today.
Is there something odd about the GX745 which makes the livecd images
behave this way? Is there something odd about the way that livecd images
are set up or does it use an old (or too new) version of isolinux perhaps?
-- Jon
