Bug#776098: grub-pc and grub-rescue-pc cause immediate reboot

[Otto Meta]

Otto Meta wrote:
> After finishing the installation, the system was rebooted, but instead
> of getting some output from grub or the grub menu, the system rebooted
> again, immediately after the BIOS was done.

As it turns out, setting the BIOS option "CPU Internal Cache" to "Disabled"
will let grub-pc 2.02~beta2-19 run and the system can boot normally,
albeit very slowly. With no cache, uncompressing the Linux kernel image
takes almost two minutes. Re-enabling the cache causes grub to reboot
again.

grub-rescue-pc from Wheezy (1.99-27+deb7u2) and LILO work as expected
even with the CPU-internal cache enabled.

The BIOS also has a "CPU External Cache" option, but disabling that
doesn't improve anything. The mainboard doesn't actually have any
CPU "external" cache. Not sure what that refers to.

VIA C3 Ezra caches:
L1-Cache: 64 + 64 KB (Data + Instructions)
L2-Cache: 64 KB

Otto