[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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