small update:
I haven't used PLoP since last year December and now discovered that Ctrl-Shift-U trick doesn't work any more for me. I downloaded version 5.0.8 and got the same result as with 5.0.6:
after pressing Ctrl-Shift-U it finds something and boots it, but after the message (white text on black background) "
something .... Linux.... debian.... Boot:" everything stops.
I used
UNetbootin to prepare the bootable USB memory stick, I even tested one another with the same result. I also tried a few variations in bios config (Numlock option and boot order) and all four USB slots without any change.
Any suggestion what might have happened?
edit:
using Ubuntu's own USB memory stick creator I get strange black screen with white Ubuntu text and logo in center and "keyboard=human figure" in lower part.
What is that supposed to mean?
2nd edit:
Fedora 12 on USB memory stick with UNetbootin
I get hard freeze if I use
U in plop menu after:
LOADING EHCI DRIVER
SEARCHING ON HOSTS
HOST 1Boot stops if I use
Ctrl-Shift-U or
Shift-U:
SYSLINUX 3.63 Debian-2008-07-15 EBIOS Copyright (C) 1994-2008 H.Peter Anvin
boot:
_The last sign
"_" is blinking forever. I can reboot any time using
Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
I also let PLoP search for more devices once using
Ctrl-Shift-U:
LOADING UHCI DRIVER
SEARCHING ON HOSTS
HOST 1
HOST 2
USB 2.0
FLASH DISK
LOADING BOOT SECTOR...
WAITING FOR ANY KEY TO BOOT
N=CONTINUE SEARCHI press N
SEARCHING ON HOSTS
HOST 3
*** BOOT ERROR ***
NO BOOT DEVICE FOUND, PLEASE RETRY ITI think it could be that I don't have any Windows operating systems installed right now (though I am not certain if there were any then PLoP worked) Can they influence PLoP/BIOS somehow? I also tried plpbtnoemul.iso without any visible change.
3rd edit:
Doing
Ctrl-Shift-UThen pressing
NThen pressing
SpacebarThen pressing again
Ctrl-Shift-UAnd this time pressing any other key than
N will boot the memory stick successfully.
So basically I have to run
Ctrl-Shift-U twice for whatever reason. I also noticed that if I have USB keyboard plugged in then it stops working after the first scan - does that signify something? Anyway the most important is that I got PLoP working again.