[syslinux] Dynamic Menu based on what isolinux can read from your local filesystem
jmblack
jmblack at hansonsystems.com
Fri Nov 15 18:27:19 PST 2002
Comments inline
> -----Original Message-----
> From: H. Peter Anvin [mailto:hpa at zytor.com]
> Posted At: Thursday, November 14, 2002 1:40 AM
> Posted To: Syslinux
> Conversation: [syslinux] MSDOS not working: problem Solved
> Subject: Re: [syslinux] MSDOS not working: problem Solved
>
>
> G. Murali Krishnan wrote:
> >
> > In short: Is it possible to have such a feature in some
> future version?
> > May be someimage like memdisk can do this?
> > If not is there any other way I can achieve the
> same effect.
> >
>
> Probably not. It would entail writing to the hard disk (since that's
> the only possible storage medium) which seems at best
> inappropriate for
> a CD.
What he wants doesnt necessarily have to 'write' to the device at
all....
If I understood him correctly what he wants is basically this...
if exist multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS (label 2
kernel memdisk
append initrd=rescue.img)
if not exist multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS (label 2
kernel memdisk
append initrd=install.img)
If you structured the isolinux config correctly isolinux (syslinux,
pxelinux) could build dynamic menus based on the contents of local
devices.
The problem would be reading the local filesystem...
-jmblack
> You could theoretically do something like that by putting the disk
> access inside a COMBOOT/COM32 binary, but that would have to
> include the
> whole filesystem.
>
> Of course, for *special tasks*, you might have a lot easier job. For
> example, in your install disk example, if you know none of
> your users is
> going to have nonstandard partitioning (or if you're going to
> repartition the disk anyway), you can usually use the sectors on the
> hard disk immediately after the MBR. The first partition
> traditionally
> starts at the beginning of the second track, even though there is no
> requirement for partitions to be such aligned. This means
> some number
> of sectors are left unused. These can be accessed with BIOS call INT
> 13h from a COMBOOT/COM32 binary, which can be used to control
> ISOLINUX.
>
> This obviously takes some hacking, but it's doable.
>
> -hpa
>
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