[syslinux] Manually installing syslinux?

Nick Bartos spam99 at 2thebatcave.com
Tue Jun 29 20:08:30 PDT 2004


I am wondering if it is possible to install syslinux manually, without the
actual syslinux utility.

Basically I have a little linux distro that uses syslinux.  I have an
automated upgrade system that also updates the bootloader before
rebooting.  I currently compile syslinux (and mtools) statically, so that
the new syslinux will not depend on any libraries on the old software
version (since they may be different than what it was compiled with).

This was OK until I realized that if I change the kernel compatibility
level when I build glibc, syslinux still may not run on the older host
systems to do the bootloader update.

So basically I want to see if there is a (stable) way to install syslinux
manually.  By manually, I mean using utilities on the old host version
that I know are there (like dd, cp, mount), and not using any utilities I
compiled for the new os version (so I won't run into kernel version
compatibility errors).

I was thinking something like:

mount /boot r/w
copy ldlinux.sys to /boot
umount /boot

dd something to the device file for the /boot partition.

I can do the ldlinux.sys thing easy (since it looks like the same file is
unmodified in the tarball as gets installed by syslinux itself), but I am
undertain what to write at the start of the partition.

Is this possible & a good idea?




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