I have been working on getting a couple of system running under iMedia Linux. The general distro looks good. I have a test installation on a Epia system booting from CF. However when I try to boot from the same CF on a Geode LX system (DTreaserch DT166 with Insyde's eXpressROM) I get the notorious ". ..." error message when the system attempts to boot from the CF over its IDE interface. I see in the thread "Help! I can't install to newer CF cards" a similar issue existed also with 4.0.1 I made extensive investigations to try and work around the problem to no avail. Here are a few data points to help others. I have 2 CF cards. A) 1G Transend device specifically designed for embedded use with a UDMA interface. B) A 32M Fuji device, old, and know to boot on an old Geode GX system I nolonger have Both boot satisfactory on my Epia test system Every combination of BIOS settings on the eXpressROM does not help. Specifially: 1. Forcing 40 conductor IDE cable 2. Disabling UDMA 3. Specifying specific PIO or UDMA modes One of the difficulties I have is I don't know where the ". ..." message is coming from. It could be: i) The BIOS when it tries to read the MBR ii) The GRUB stage 1 MBR If anyone has any clues I would be very grateful.

Hello Nicu,

OK you got me on the right track. There is a GRUB and a DMA problem. I am now using the following minimal /boot/grub/grub.conf which may help others with similar boot problems.

boot=/dev/hda1
default=0
timeout=2
title iMedia-nodma
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/imedia ro root=/dev/hda1 ide=nodma
initrd /boot/initrd.img
title iMedia
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/imedia ro root=/dev/hda1
initrd /boot/initrd.img

The original configuration also setup a serial port and loads a splash screen. I suspect one of these item was responsible for GRUB hanging, but I have not investigated further.

Thanks!