I'm just reading this thread in more detail. Sorry for this latecomer message.<br><br>A few tips for that very first time you boot linux on a linuxbios machine:<br>1) when booting linuxbios on a new machine, ALWAYS configure the 
<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; kernel as an i386. It's just safer that way. Turn off everything you can.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; make sure what you're doing would work on a 1990-era PC.<br>2) always enable serial and, before you try linuxbios, run <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; minicom on the machine and make sure serial REALLY works.
<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; This is also a good cable test. Take nothing for granted.<br>3) If it's legal where you live, <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; always burn a copy of the fuctory bios and boot with that, <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; to ensure your burn path is totally working. 
<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Again, if it is legal where you live, keep a spare<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; copy of fuctory bios around for that inevitable time when you<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; screw up and flash over it.<br>4) never try VGA on the first time around. It adds too much 
<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; variation<br>5) use earlyprintk! earlyprintk=ttyS0,115200,keep<br>6) learn to use initramfs, and have it boot a simple shell<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (I'm just getting the hang of this, but it's very useful)<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (you can write a shell in surprisingly small space)
<br>7) spontaneous reboots almost always mean that <br>&nbsp;&nbsp; you have the wrong cpu type. See note (1) above. <br>&nbsp;&nbsp; very quick reboots are a good hint that memory is <br>&nbsp;&nbsp; getting errors. Lockups are a sign of bad memory <br>
&nbsp;&nbsp; programming (you wouldn't believe some&nbsp; of the failures<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; I've seen) or you've got an old VIA chipset with a bug :-)<br>&nbsp;&nbsp; For any but the worst reboots, earlyprintk is a big help.<br><br>thanks<br><br>ron<br>