Re: [5.0_RC2] long delay in /boot

[Andrew Doran <ad%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 06:45:08PM +0100, Quentin Garnier wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 12:38:13PM -0500, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> > On Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:19:53 -0500 (EST)
> > "Jared D. McNeill" <jmcneill%invisible.ca@localhost> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Sun, 22 Feb 2009, Joerg Sonnenberger wrote:
> > > >>> On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 03:55:50PM -0500, Andreas Wrede wrote:
> > > >>>> usr/pkg/mdec/memtestplus is also delayed by the same 4 min 52
> > > >>>> sec.
> > > > The problem shown is after boot printed the size of the kernel
> > > > segments and before the kernel prints the copyright.
> > > 
> > > It seems memtestplus shows the same behaviour.
> > > 
> > Which points strongly to the boot loader, since memtestplus doesn't use
> > any part of our kernel.
> 
> But it might initialise the pckbc the same way NetBSD does in early
> console setup.

It doesn't have any need to - it uses the BIOS tty functions. However the
keyboard controller on x86 controls stuff other than the keyboard and there
are legacy registers that don't get emulated correctly by a lot of hardware
because there is no need to - I guess because Windows uses BIOS calls or
prefers a newer method of doing XYZ.

Maybe it's such a problem? Or a BIOS bug? Without sprinkling in printf()s I
doubt we will know.

Andrew