[syslinux] More features in Syslinux 2.08

[ganapathy murali krishnan]

As far as I know the only thing close to that, is to boot DOS from a 
floppy image (stored on the CD). The floppy image will contain the CD 
drivers and hence you can use DOS to access the contents of the CD.

The floppy image is usually stored in the "boot sector" of the CD, or if 
you are using utilities like ISOLINUX, then they can be stored on the 
CD, and ISOLINUX/memdisk can boot these images for you as if it was in 
the "boot sector" of the CD.

AFAIK,
1. memdisk cannot boot ISO images, but
2. If you can unpack the ISO image on the CD, and extract the "boot 
sector" of the ISO image, then ISOLINUX can boot it for you.

- Murali

Egan Ford wrote:
> Can you create a DOS ISO CD image and memdisk boot it?
> 
> If so, how?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> 
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com 
>>[mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On Behalf Of Murali 
>>Krishnan Ganapathy
>>Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 9:38 AM
>>To: syslinux at zytor.com
>>Subject: [syslinux] More features in Syslinux 2.08
>>
>>
>>More features in 2.08 which I would like to see
>>
>>**** A way by which DOS images can find out the command line 
>>arguments 
>>sent (and identfy the fact that memdisk is stll around?)
>>
>>I hope to use such a feature as follows: Instead of hanving 
>>multiple DOS 
>>images on my isolinux based CD, I will have only one. Based on the 
>>command line argument I can execute different DOS batch scripts (just 
>>like I do for the linux side now).
>>
>>**** Another error handling construct as follows. I add the line 
>>"onerror abc" to isolinux.cfg then what should happen is the 
>>following: 
>>If the user type something in the boot prompt which is not a valid 
>>kernel / label name, the label/COMBOOT image abc is executed with the 
>>bad line as its command line argument. The other image then 
>>handles the 
>>error as it pleases.
>>
>>The use for (2) which I am seeing is the following: I have one 
>>particular image (say master) which takes as argument the name of a 
>>network script and executes it after booting into linux. Because of 
>>this, I can add scripts on the network and use it in my 
>>ISOLINUX CD by 
>>typing "master image=newscript" at the boot prompt. I would like to 
>>avoid my users having to type all that... Instead all I want them to 
>>type is "newscript". Then ISOLINUX will find that it is a bad 
>>label, and 
>>call my COMBOOT with newscript as the argument. Then in the COMBOOT 
>>code, I will "execute" the image "master image=newscript". Since the 
>>user does not see all this, he has the feeling that as soon 
>>as he drops 
>>a script into a network location, ISOLINUX automagically 
>>recognizes that 
>>label as well.
>>
>>**** Nothing else so far... I am sure I can think of a couple more 
>>things....
>>
>>- Murali
>>
>>H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I just found a rather embarrassing bug in PXELINUX -- and 
>>
>>what's worse 
>>
>>>-- I wrote an email about it and killed it off accidentally :-/
>>>
>>>It appears PXELINUX doesn't free its internal socket 
>>
>>buffers (it has 
>>
>>>32 of them) when it gets an error reply from the server, including 
>>>"file not found."  This means it will eventually run out of sockets 
>>>and "go deaf."  This hasn't been caught until now simply because 
>>>PXELINUX usually uses far less than 32 socket buffers during normal 
>>>execution.
>>>
>>>I have released a syslinux-2.08-pre3 which fixes this bug:
>>>
>>>ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/Testing/
>>>
>>>At the moment, other than the bug fixes plus "timeoutcmd" that are 
>>>already in 2.08-pre3, there is really only one thing on my list for 
>>>2.08, which is an API function to "replace bootstrap", which is 
>>>something that would allow a very simple comboot program to 
>>
>>implement 
>>
>>>the "local boot harddisk X partition Y" functionality a lot 
>>
>>of people 
>>
>>>have asked for.  The internal functionality already exists in 
>>>syslinux; it's just a matter of exposing it through an API function.
>>>
>>>Anyone who has anything else they'd like to see in 2.08, now is the 
>>>time to speak up...
>>>
>>>    -hpa
>>>
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>>
>>
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