[syslinux] Good, bad and ugly

[Quinn]

H. Peter Anvin wrote:

>
> The one thing that seems possible to go is the automatic search for 
> LDLINUX.SYS.  The boot sector can hard-code the location of this file, 
> or perhaps only the beginning of it.  This means the file cannot be 
> moved, but it's already standard that a file with the System attribute 
> set shouldn't be moved.  It also means it's no longer "just a file"; 
> it will not be possible to copy it or write it with anything other 
> than the syslinux installer, to the extent it ever was.


Is this not what grub does currently?  The address for the next piece of 
code is in the mbr and uses it to load the second stage loader - am I 
correct?

I believe MS/PC-DOS does the same thing - it looks for IO.SYS/IBMBIO.COM 
in the fat table, loads it, then executes it.

I'll vote for the last method - very similiar to the way DOS loads - and 
your right - many defragmentation programs don't move files that have 
the system bit on them.

Quinn