Syslinux is a suite of bootloaders that can boot a variety of Operating Systems. See syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/The_Syslinux_Project for more information.

This repository (github.com/pierre/syslinux-fastboot) is an out-of-tree series of patches implementing a resume mechanism for Linux in a COM32 module for Syslinux. See the description of the branch fast-boot below.

Nothing to see here (3.7x tree). Has one commit to have this README displayed on github.

When booting a Linux based computer from a hibernate image, the process is broken down into three distinct phases:

1/ the bootloader loads the kernel image
2/ the loaded (first) kernel reads the hibernate image on disk and jumps into a saved kernel
3/ the second kernel, saved in the hibernate image, resets the saved state of the OS and resume its operations

As an experiment, I wanted to see if it was possible to skip the second step and have the bootloader read and jump into the saved kernel on disk directly. This has been implemented in resume.c32, a Syslinux COM32 module which can read a TuxOnIce image (see github.com/pierre/tuxonice-fastboot) and jump into a saved kernel.

Although the experiment has been successful, it is not clear whether this can be used in practice.

First of all, reading the hibernate image is quite I/O expensive and can be done much faster using a real kernel vs using native I/O BIOS routines

Second, some extra work may need to be done in 2/ above for the hardware to be in a safe state before attempting to resume (reset registers, …). resume.c32 doesn’t do any of that work and although it works in a stock Debian install in Qemu, it is not guaranteed to be stable using real hardware.

To see it in action: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF9nUVkHCrQ