[syslinux] Linux SYSLINUX vs SYSLINUX.EXE

[H. Peter Anvin]

Jack Luepke wrote:

> To all or anyone:
>  
> I have a very strange problem when using syslinux, and lnx-bbc.  Perhaps
> somebody can provide some insight
> into Syslinux as it relates to what I'm trying to do.
>  
> At Peerless, we use LNX-BBC to build a bootable USB thumbdrive.  We
> added a script to init.d in the ram disk
> to execute one our scripts during LNX-BBC boot from the USB thumb drive.
> I have seen an apparent difference
> between the Linux syslinux (we use RedHat 7.3) and the SYSLINUX.EXE
> windows version.  We can create
> bootable thumbdrives with both versions of syslinux, however when using
> the linux version of syslinux the 
> booted system executes our "added" script in init.d - however - when we
> use the SYSLINUX.EXE version we 
> can boot the thumbdrive however our "added" script in init.d does not
> execute.  The only difference in the two
> scenarios is the version if syslinux.
>  
> In addition if we prepare a USB thumbdrive using the SYSLINUX.EXE
> version (and test to verify that our "added"
> script in init.d does not execute) then execute the linux syslinux
> version on the same thumbdrive, we then
> verify that our "added" script in init.d executes during boot.
>  
> Weird, right?  I'll pester the LNX-BBC folks as well, but I thought the
> Syslinux folks at zytor would maybe have
> Insight.
>  

I'm sorry, I don't believe you.  I think you must have some other 
difference going on that you're either not aware of or that you've 
forgotten about.  To being with, you're not mentioning which version of 
syslinux is installed by the respective installers -- and you're using a 
distribution which is positively ancient -- or what your configuration 
file looks like.

However, the main reason I don't believe it's the only difference, is 
because syslinux has absolutely nothing to do with loading any init 
scripts; that's done by init well after the kernel has booted.

	-hpa