[syslinux] pxelinux menu questions

Nazo nazosan at gmail.com
Fri Nov 4 06:16:50 PST 2005


On 11/3/05, Grant Gossett <ggossett at symantec.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I have a few questions about the menuing system that I haven't been able
> to find in the archives (it would be nice if they were available in a
> searchable form other than having to click on a month-by month basis and
> read through them - if they are searchable I would love to find a way to
> do this but it hasn't jumped out at me).
>
> My first question is : What is menu.c32? I see some posts of
> /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default in the archived threads that have simple
> menus and use this as the "default" entry in pxelinux.cfg/default, yet I
> see no label in the rest of the file named menu.c32 (I'm thinking this is
> not right). For example:
>
> DEFAULT menu.c32
>
> LABEL whatever
> KERNEL memdisk
> APPEND somedosbootdisk.img
>
>
> I realize menu.c32 is a program (com32 style?) that is found in syslinux
> 3.11 under com32/modules. The question is what does it do and why should I
> use it? Is placing it as the default in a simple menu (as I've described
> above and feel is wrong) the correct way to use it? I am interested in
> displaying a menu of choices to users (e.g. dos ghost boot disk, linux
> kickstart installs, win 98 SE boot disks, etc) so that they either can
> select an option with enter or know what possible options exist. Using the
> simple menu with "prompt 1" I get what I would consider a normal LILO-like
> boot loader prompt:
>
> boot:
>
> However, I cannot get a list of options (labels) to display and expecting
> users to remember to answer "win98se_bootdisk" isn't really going to work
> :). This is probably a job for the advanced menus (unless my assumption
> that menu.c32 + a simple menu is actually for this purpose (i.e. it shows
> menu labels that are listed in /tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default) and I don't
> know how to use it correctly).
>
> Let's say that I am stuck with creating an advanced (compiled com32) menu
> because my above assumption about menu.c32 is incorrect. So I would make
> the com32 menu file according to the documentation and my menu needs (no
> problems there). This leads me to my next question:
>
> Do I replace the entire simple menu with just one option (say for instance
> a label that has the newly made com32 menu as its kernel and also make
> that label the default)? For example:
>
> DEFAULT myfancypants
>
> LABEL myfancypants
> KERNEL myfancynewmenu.c32
>
>
> thanks a bunch for any help clearing this up for me.
>
> Grant
>
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>

To the question about menu.c32, it's a nice little module that you can
boot through syslinux and it's other incarnates which gives you a
really simplistic menu.  No pretty flash graphics or anything, but, it
gives you nice simple little labels so the user isn't required to know
exactly what to type to boot a particular item, and you don't have to
create complex message files to explain to them exactly what to do. 
To use it, you just simply boot it like a kernel.  However, it also
accepts some new commands in the configuration, such as MENU LABEL
under each boot item to give it a nicer label visible in the menu. 
Here is an example configuration from my own system to give you an
idea of how it works:

# Nazo's Extlinux Configuration

DEFAULT menu.c32
ONTIMEOUT chain.c32 hd0 2
TIMEOUT 100
PROMPT 0
IMPLICIT 1

SAY Enter command line for bootup:
MENU TITLE Syslinux Bootup


LABEL windows
	MENU LABEL ^Windows
	MENU DEFAULT
	KERNEL chain.c32
	APPEND hd0 2

LABEL linux
	MENU LABEL Gentoo ^Linux 2005.1
	KERNEL gentoo
	APPEND initrd=gentinit vga=0x31b root=/dev/ram0 real_root=/dev/hda7
udev ramdisk=16384 video=vesafb:mtrr,ywrap,1280x1024-32 at 60


LABEL geexbox
	MENU LABEL ^GeeXBoX
	KERNEL geexbox
	APPEND initrd=geexinit.gz root=/dev/ram0 rw init=linuxrc boot=hda1
splash=0 vga=0x315 video=vesafb:ywrap,mtrr


LABEL pqmagic
	MENU LABEL ^Partition Magic 8
	KERNEL memdisk
	APPEND initrd=/disks/pqmagic.gz floppy

LABEL memtest
	MENU LABEL ^Memtest86+ 1.60
	KERNEL memtestp
	APPEND -
	
LABEL mprime
	MENU LABEL Prime^95 24.13
	KERNEL mprime
	APPEND initrd=mpinit.gz rw ramdisk_size=5325


LABEL dosdisk
	MENU LABEL DOS ^Bootdisk (Windows 98 based)
	KERNEL memdisk
	APPEND initrd=/disks/dos.gz floppy

LABEL dos622
	MENU LABEL DOS ^6.22 Bootdisk
	KERNEL memdisk
	APPEND initrd=/disks/dos622.gz floppy


LABEL aida
	MENU LABEL AIDA (Displays detailed information on every system component)
	KERNEL memdisk
	APPEND initrd=/disks/aida.img floppy




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