In this case, lenny - please excuse me for not understanding the details of this implementationWhen the Debian installer is booted (either from CD or netboot), it displays a graphical splash screen (splash.rle)Hmm. Are you only talking about the splash screen (Etch installer) or (also) about the graphical boot menu used introduced in the Lenny installer?
When someone is accessing a server remotely using a HP iLO, they may not have the iLO licensed for graphical modes (extra license fees have to be paid to HP) Alternatively, someone may be using a serial port for remote access (e.g. through a Cisco 2511 with multiple async ports)For both Etch and Lenny this issue is covered in the Installation Guide. See the notes in the following pages:- http://www.debian.org/releases/etch/i386/ch05s01.html.en#boot-screen - http://www.debian.org/releases/lenny/i386/ch05s01.html.en#boot-screen
Thanks for pointing that out - the page correctly describes the issues.However, the instructions given there don't work for an iLO - blindly pressing keystrokes doesn't seem to work.
I had already discovered the fb=false parameter, and by setting the syslinux args default=expert, timeout=3 and setting the kernel arg fb=false, I'm able to PXE boot into the installer.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have one of these options: - a non-graphical variation of the install CDWe already have a huge number of installation media and variants...- a pause before entering graphical mode, with the user having the chance to press a key choosing non-graphical install - no use of graphics until the user has explicitly agreedAFAIK syslinux/isolinux does not offer those options.I'm tagging this report wontfix as I don't really see any realistic way to do anything about it.
Couldn't it be recorded as a syslinux feature request?Maybe the default configuration files could include commented out variations of the workaround I've used myself, or even go as far as distributing a netboot-nonfb.tar.gz on the mirrors?