I am installing Red Hat 7.2 on notebook HDDs by attaching them to an i686 PC and installing, then moving them to our "embedded" system which is an i586.

However, whenever I boot the system Lilo will start to load, then the system proceeds to reboots itself before the kernel uncompresses. It keeps rebooting in a neverending cycle.

When I use an i586 machine to install it works fine, so it's something to do with switching architecture. Is there a way to prevent this so that I can build the system with an i686 and run it also on an i586?

Thanks in advance
Tom

Intel CPU instruction sets are downward compatable i.e. if compiled for an i586 it will work on a i686 but not the reverse. You will have to recompile the kernel and modules using the i586 instruction set before moving to the embedded system.

Hmmm. It appears that it was compiled for i386, which should be compatible. Any other ideas? Maybe something BIOS related?

What do you mean by embedded? What kind of board is it?

It's basically a PC on a voice board for a phone switch. It's got an AMD 133MHz. No video, just serial and ethernet.

So its a true single board computer.. My WAG would be its BIOS, configuration, etc is nonstandard compared to a regular motherboard. In this case a standard kernel will not work.

Any markings as to its manufacture?

I don't think it is non-standard - PhoenixBIOS 4.0. The build machine that works is a Pentium 200 with PhoenixBIOSPlus 1.10 A12. The i686 build machine is a PIII I believe.

The board was custom manufactured.

Thanks for your help

I get confused easily. If I follow... you can get the system to work on what you call the i586 machine which is a pentium 200 but not the i686 which is a PIII. So what distro / version is running on the i586 PC.

I see how this can be confusing. I think I was inaccurate somewhere (I meant PII but fingers typed PIII, also I checked and the voice board is a 486, not 586). I am using Red Hat 7.2. There are 3 machines here, and just one HDD:

A) i586 Pentium 200 MHz (PhoenixBIOS A12) - if I build the HDD from here, then move it to (C), it boots up fine
B) i686 Pentium II 400 MHz (PhoenixBIOS A02) - if I build the HDD from here, then move it to (C), it keeps rebooting itself
C) i486 AMD 133MHz (PhoenixBIOS 4.0) - this is the voice board I am attaching the HDD to and booting

So whats the problem Just use the pentium 200 PC.

With a stock kernel my first guess would be it should work but I'm not RH savy enough to say if there are any differences between a Pentium and a PII install.

Maybe someone else has an idea

Recompile everything (Kernel, RPMs, etc) for 486 machine without multimedia optizations. If possible, use Slackware without RPMs. In the kernel include the chipset. Do not forget to include the chipset that your embedded board uses in the kernel. I don't remember the chipsets that was used for the AMD 486DX4-133 processor. I think its either sis, ali, or intel.