[syslinux] Failure to boot isohybrid image from USB stick

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Dag Wieers wrote:
> I have started to implement an initramfs creation tool that based on a 
> fileset will start to collect all files (and dependencies) from the host
> ...
> http://svn.rpmforge.net/svn/trunk/tools/centos-rescue/
> Unfortunately, whereas the uncompressed size of RIPLinux is 90M, ours is 
> already 105M (and not including everything RIPLinux has).

Sorry for sliding off topic now {:)
Probably the centos-rescue project will
need an own place for discussion.

But for once:

I had a look into fset/centos5.fset for the CD/DVD/BD
software.
I see three possible levels of fatness for the burner
department:


1) The core tasks of burning are covered by xorriso
   and its defined alias links. 660 kB stripped
   (on a 64 bit SuSE).
   It knows what is expected when getting started as
   "mkisofs" or "cdrecord".
   There is some data rescue functionality and the
   capability to extract files from not mounted ISO
   images.


2) The following tools provide extra functionality:

   growisofs, dvd+rw-booktype, dvd+rw-format,
   dvd+rw-mediainfo, dvd-ram-control
   for rather exotic media (e.g. DVD-R DL, BD-R) and for
   programs which rely on using the growisofs CLI.
   The dvd+rw* commands are valuable in case of trouble
   with DVD media.

   cdrecord (the original by Joerg Schilling)
   for exotic CD layouts (e.g. CD-XA).

   mkisofs (original)
   for creating UDF images, exotic ISO 9660 tasks,
   HFS, ...

   readcd 
   for reading non-data sectors from CD.
 
   flyisofs
   can produce ISO images in a single pass, but one has
   no control over their directory structure.

   cdck
   evaluates the read quality of media.

   cdmrw
   formats CD-RW to become overwriteable (i wonder
   whether the block device driver supports them).
   Probably needed to use the kernel's UDF capabilities
   on CD-RW media.

   cdwtool
   i have to assume it does something useful.

   isoextract
   has few documentation available.
   The name sounds interesting.


3) The other candidates have not many capabilities which
   are not icovered by 1) or 2). So
      cdrskin,
      dvdrecord,
      wodim (not in list),
      genisoimage (not in list),
      isoinfo,
      isosize,
   would be more or less redundant.
   I guess about one megabyte can be saved here. 

   cdrskin with wodim as fallback are an interesting team.
   But for a lean system that's much to playful.

   I never found out what senseful things one could do
   with cdrdao (not in list anyway).


There are several *2iso programs which remove the
proprietiary aspects from various ISO 9660 derivates.
One of their home pages points to program "iat"
which seems to bundle much of their functionality.

Probaby i have overlooked some burn-related tools in
the list. Give me a note if there is anything else
to evaluate.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas