old-www/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/bugs-bootloadernoise.html

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>A.9. Boot loaders are vulnerable to line noise</H1
><P
>Most boot loaders will sit at their prompt forever after
receiving a single character of line noise.</P
><P
>Some modems will let the <SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>RS-232</SPAN
> signals
"float", sending noise when there is no caller. Because the modem
is not asserting Data Carrier Detect it expects the receiver to
discard the noise characters.</P
><P
>The combination of an unfortunate boot loader with an
unfortunate modem can result in a machine that will regularly hang
during booting.</P
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>If you cannot configure your boot loader to obey
<SPAN
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>DCD</SPAN
> then be careful to test any modem you intend
to purchase to ensure that it does not generate characters when
their is no caller. At the present only
<SPAN
CLASS="APPLICATION"
>SYSLINUX</SPAN
> implements full
<SPAN
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>RS-232</SPAN
> status signals.</P
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