[syslinux] Unable to figure out extlinux

[H. Peter Anvin]

Dyks, Axel (XL) wrote:
> Peter wrote:
>>> Which steps did you perform to actually _install_ the bootloader?
>>> By the way, the CLFS book explains how to use grub and not
>>> how to use syslinux/extlinux.
>>>
>> The problem with lilo and grub is that they expect to be used in an
>> environment that isn't cross compiled, and the drives tend not to
>> change. In this case, I'm building the flash card out on a laptop and
>> then moving it to the platform.
> Both grub as well as syslinux/extlinux can be installed on drives/media
> that are _temporarily_ attached to your "build system".
> As long as the target system's CPU "understands" the (x86) instructions
> of the boot loader everything should work as expected.

Except that grub and lilo expect disk numbers to stay constant.  That's 
a totally bogus assumption.

>> It's too slow to actually build on, and
>> to save space, I don't have a compiler anyway. Makes this part harder,
>> but the rest is easier and faster (compiling on an AMD X2 4800 is faster
>> than a 300 MHz AMD low voltage x86).
> Isn't the "C" in CLFS refering exactly to what you are intending?
> I would expect to be able to "chroot" to the CLFS on the build host,
> finalize the environment, copy a "stripped down" version of the CLFS
> to the target medium and install the boot loader.
> I've done a similar thing with "gentoo-embedded" where the "chroot-ed"
> build environment compiles for i386 and uses uclibc (== target environment)
> whereas the native build machine's environment is i686/glibc (Pentium-M Dual Core).

You can do that; the command is something like
"chroot /clfs /sbin/extlinux /boot/extlinux" (to install in /boot/extlinux).

However, extlinux is fully self-contained, so if you have the proper 
version of extlinux on the host, just "extlinux /clfs/boot/extlinux" 
should work, too.  The only version dependence that becomes a potential 
issue is to make sure that the .c32 modules matches the version of extlinux.

	-hpa