Re: Boot hangs with kbd unplugged: "Hi Heinrich, > I am using etherboot 3.2 and mknbi-linux 0.7.1(netboot). Works fine! > However, if i want to operate a Linux PC without keyboard (printserver), > the boot process hangs after the message > > Linux Net Boot Image Loader This was a known error in prior releases of etherboot; it should be fixed in release 3.2. You are experiencing problems with a buggy keyboard controller. Most machines work just fine without keyboards, but are stuck with a defective motherboard. The problem occurs when etherboot (or Linux) tries to enable the gate A20, which is neccessary to access any memory location above 1MB. This is done by programming the keyboard controller. Ideally, it should be independant of whether a keyboard is attached, but with your machine the controller does not acknowledge the operation if there is no keyboard. You could try playing around with your BIOS configurations. If there is any mention of the word 'keyboard' or 'gate A20', then change these options. > As soon as i plug in the keyboard, the process continues with > > Uncompressing Linux...done > Now booting the kernel This almost looks as if it was Linux, that is waiting for the keyboard controller. You might need to patch the Linux kernel. Take a look at the end of 'src/misc.c' in the etherboot 3.2 source tree. There is a timeout of 1s in the empty_8042() code. You will probably have to port this code into the appropriate code in the Linux starter. Check around line 640 in /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/setup.S; after applying this patch, you will also have to make certain, that the gate A20 is enabled by some other means. If you are lucky, this can be done from your system BIOS. There might be an option labled 'fast gate A20' that could have some effect... > Is the Boot Image Loader waiting for any keyboard input? > If so, can this be disabled? If none of the above helps, you will have to buy some cheap 20,-DM keyboard that you keep attached to your machine. "