[syslinux] Sysinux 6 will not boot ISOs on BIOS (i.e. pre-UEFI) systems
Mattias Schlenker
ms at mattiasschlenker.de
Mon Nov 25 11:11:02 PST 2013
Am 25.11.2013 12:40, schrieb Thomas Schmitt:
>
> On my own test system, a high address (263921) and 6.02 work fine.
>
> So we have some ingredient in the boot firmware, and some other
> in a difference between SYSLINUX 6.01 and 4.07.
>
> The reported symptoms differ slightly:
In September Thomas and I discussed this topic off the list regarding
Isolinux 5.0x after some colleagues signalled trouble booting the merged
image of a rescue CD with further DVD content (the issue: I prepared a
rescue CD that worked fine everywhere, when merging this CD with a few
thousand files and re-named boot files to a DVD, it stopped booting on
some machines). On all of my test systems everything worked even with
high LBAs while the troubles my colleages had were as described: ETCD
disk error plus halt, reboot or just hanging systems. After comparing
the images of the rescue system alone with the merged DVD we noticed the
different LBAs of isolinux.bin. When everything booted fine on every
machine after moving isolinux.bin well within the LBA 65.535 limit we
stopped investigating and moved on. Since the problem just occured on
some BIOSes and was fixed after moving isolinux.bin to low LBA we
thought the sole problem was the BIOSes.
If someone is suspecting a strange interaction between changes in
Isolinux from 4.0x to 5.0x and buggy BIOSes we might however try to
narrow down the factor Isolinux. On December 11th I will be at the
Springer offices in Hamburg again where I can test some prepared images
on affected hardware and document BIOS vendors and versions (we
identified four out of twenty machines in the test pool, built between
2005 to 2010) to be affected. I am however not very keen to do so,
because: With a few hundred thousand bootable ISOs on computer magazines
in Europe and Southern America that I prepare every year we run into the
weirdest BIOS and UEFI issues. Sometimes after releasing a DVD I get
three complaints of the same boot failures the first day. I then assume
to have run into a widespread problem, assume 50 times more people
affected, create a workaround and ... end up with seven downloads even
after widely propagating the fix.
So my opinion is: Leave this strange interaction uninvestigated, remind
users to force a sort order that moves all isolinux related files to low
LBAs when building ISOs and move on, it is not worth the time. I will
gladly write a section on the issue for the xorriso man pages (and the
syslinux wiki) but we should not go any further as long as the problem
does not occur with boot images located lower than 65535.
Regards,
Mattias
PS: Thomas, might I call you during the next days? POTS style?
--
Mattias Schlenker - Redaktion + EDV-Beratung + Linux-CD/DVD-Konzepte
August-Bebel-Str. 74 - 04275 LEIPZIG - GERMANY
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