Where's the docs?

[Samuel Mendoza-Jonas]

On Mon, 2016-12-19 at 14:26 +0100, Michal Suchánek wrote:
> As is the case with such BIOS help screens they are 95% redundant to the
> information already presented on the screen for which they give help.

What information do you find is lacking from either the documentation or the
help screens? I can then look into making it more helpful and propagating it
out to the main documentation.

> 
> > 
> > > 
> > > So what it actually does it that it scans any devices it finds for
> > > any bootloader configuration it understands. Then it picks by some
> > > undefined algorithm a default system to boot and timeout.  
> > 
> > Petitboot picks what to boot based on a) the device priority you have
> > selected and b) the default option specified by the bootloader
> > configuration. Do you know which version of Petitboot (or the IBM
> > firmware) you are running? You should see that the device boot order
> > is configurable in the "System Configuration" screen.
> 
> Options set on the CUI screens don't persist across reboots so the
> order is effectively whatever petitboot picks by default. Since the
> default order is not documented it's effectively random from user's
> point of view.
> 
> Petitboot (dev.20150921)

Something definitely isn't right with your system then, configuration changes
should persist without any issue. I see you're running a relatively older
version, as a first step try updating to the latest firmware release.
If you're on an FSP-based machine that's FW860, or OP810/OP820 if you're on
an OpenPOWER machine.

If that doesn't make a difference open an issue on
https://github.com/open-power/petitboot, post
	/var/log/petitboot/pb-discover.log
	/var/log/messages
	/sys/firmware/opal/msglog
and we'll track down what's going on there.

> 
> > 
> > > 
> > > So to boot the system *you* want to boot you connect to the virtual
> > > console, put a mug on your keyboard in case the timeout picked is
> > > very short, select the system in the menu, etc.  
> > 
> > I'm very familar with the timeout problem, but you can also adjust
> > the timeout value in the Configuration screen :)
> 
> Which has no effect. It seems adjusting some options on the ASMI in
> power control section can affect the timeout, though. 
> However, the option just magically changed from 0 or 1 to 10 again
> without touching ASMI.
> 
> > 
> > > 
> > > There is an option to add and remove boot menu entries in the cui.
> > > Sadly, I found no way to just pick the default. Also any changes are
> > > lost on reboot, anyway.  
> > 
> > What do you mean by changes are lost on reboot? Sounds like your
> > machine may have an issue there, could you provide some more detail
> > on what you are seeing?
> 
> Just the same menu every time. Any deleted options are back, any added
> options are lost. Any system configuration options are reset to default.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Michal