[syslinux] Newbie question: need assistance setting up a boot menu for linux dist + win98

Alon Solell alon at wsco.com
Tue Jan 24 06:41:48 PST 2006


Hi Nazo,

Thanks for the lengthy and very thourgh reply :)

I had a jump start from a friend, so it helped to see at least most of the 
stuff you were talking about already half configured.
I managed to understand the various renaming options, to deferntiate the 
different kernels of the different distro.
One thing that I'm not sure of..

I like things organized and nicely ordered.
Is it possible to create a directory say:    wbel30   wbel40 etc.. and throw 
the files in them?
I just had a breakthrough :) and managed to pull up White Box 3 from the 
menu and it shows up the next menu that was hoping
to see, but I'm not sure what files are of importance between the different 
distributions.
By that, I mean, I copied the files from the WBEL30 isolinux into the root 
of the USB disk, and added a few:

boot.cat
boot.msg
chain.c32
general.msg
grub.exe
grub.txt
initrd.img
isolinux.bin
isolinux.cfg
memdisk
menu.c32
menu.lst
options.msg
param.msg
rescue.msg
snake.msg
syslinux.cfg
vmlinuz

In my syslinux.cfg I have the following entry:

DEFAULT menu.c32
PROMPT 0
MENU TITLE Alon is Here.

LABEL White Box 3.0
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND vga=normal initrd=initrd.img root=/dev/ram0 rw


Now,. my understanding as of now is that    I can change:

vmlinuz  to   wb3vmlnzl
AND
initrd.img   to   wb3initr.img


What about the boot.cat and boot.msg and all the rest of those files?
I copied those from the White Box 3.0   isolinux directory.

Won't those get in conflict with CentOS 4.2 files?
I would rather have complete set of files residing it its directory,. but I 
don't know how to reference the directory

APPEND vga=normal initrd=wb3initr.img root=/dev/ram0 rw       IS THERE A WAY 
TO ADD A DIRECTORY PATH?

Such that all the WBEL30 will reside in a wbel30/      and  WBEL40 will 
reside in wbel40/ ??


Alon Solell
alon at wsco.com
Tel: +972-3-642-1228
Cellcom Cellular in Israel: +972-52-386-9891
Fax: +972-3-744-0989


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nazo" <nazosan at gmail.com>
To: "Alon Solell" <alon at wsco.com>
Cc: <syslinux at zytor.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 2:51 PM
Subject: Re: [syslinux] Newbie question: need assistance setting up a boot 
menu for linux dist + win98


> On 1/23/06, Alon Solell <alon at wsco.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I want to Boot up from a USB Disk-On-Key, Pull up a menu of:
>>
>>
>> Start Fresh install of   WBEL 3.0
>> Start Fresh install of   WBEL 4.0
>> Start Fresh install of   CentOS 3.6
>> Start Fresh install of   CentOS 4.2
>> Load Win98 boot disk and end with command prompt.
>>
>>
>>
>> My problem is that I'm a novice user (sounds nicer than a newbie :)) ) 
>> and
>> my experience with Linux was
>> vanilla installs with no actuall modifications for the install process.
>>
>> I believe the process itself is fairly simple, as it only requires 
>> setting
>> up a boot menu and then run the
>> boot images of the distribution selected.
>> When I start the linux install, I choose "linux askmethod" and then being
>> prompted for the install method FTP, HTTP, CD or NFS Image.
>> I have no need for an auto install beyond that part.
>> All I need is to reach this screen, and I'll populate the values 
>> manually.
>> I just need a simple menu at the onset of the boot that will ask me: 
>> "Which
>> flavour of linux do you want to install" and thereafter
>> the selected distribution will initiate the install process of the 
>> selected
>> distribution.
>>
>> That's all I need to have,. and I'm stuck here!
>> This is just a simple boot menu configuration.. (I think),. isn't it, and
>> upon selection,. it just pull the install boot image of the
>> distribution selected.
>>
>>
>> VERY IMPORTANT:  This must be from a USB Disk On Key (I've booted from it 
>> before so
>> there is no hardware problems - all brand new hardware and it supports 
>> the boot from USB DiskOnKey)
>>
>> Any pointers on this?
>>
>>
>> - Alon
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
> Well, maybe I can help you out a little as what you want to do is kind
> of similar to what I do all the time, just I run multiple versions of
> linux live distros while you run installers (which technically are
> their own little live distros with some quite specialized scripting.)
> I'll just kind of start from the very beginning and if any of this
> sounds redundant or overly simplistic for you, it's not intended to be
> insulting (you say newbie, but, I don't know just how new.)
>
> Firstly, most of those are designed to run off of a CD, and I haven't
> seen very many bootable cds other than those made by microsoft which
> do not use Isolinux.  So the first thing to do is to pop in the
> original installation disc and find that Isolinux configuration file
> (usually /isolinux, but, I've seen a few who put it in /boot/isolinux
> or whatever, and some actually modify isolinux to put the boot files
> in another directory entirely, but, either way, you should have a
> isolinux.cfg file relatively easy to find.)  Find the choice you
> usually would make to begin the installation with default options and
> follow that label to find out which kernel (ok, most just have the
> one) and what options are specified.  You might be surprised just how
> many options get passed for simple tasks sometimes.  Anyway, write
> those options down, or, if you're lazy like me, just leave that
> isolinux.cfg file open in a text editor and refer over to your
> multiboot files.
>
> A lot of distros are lazy and leave their kernel named just plain
> vmlinuz and the ramdrive image just plain initrd.gz, so you probably
> want to rename these to avoid conflicts when you copy them to the new
> location.  Personally, I like to rename all the kernel and ramdrive
> images to something very sensible even if the originals aren't plain
> names I'd have to worry about overwriting.  It's just so easier to
> remember what "mandriva" is versus vmlinuz-mdk-2.6.whatever.  The main
> thing is, you have to remember to adjust the kernel and append
> options, which can be an easy thing to forget.  In particular, the
> ramdrive image.  If you don't have an initrd= statement for some
> reason, but, you've renamed your ramdrive image, then you'll
> definitely need to give it one (ok, I think everyone has this already
> so you only have to remember to change it to the correct value.)
>
> So, let's say I've copied over the files from my Mandriva installation
> disc.  I've copied the "vmlinuz" file from the alt0 folder and renamed
> it to "mandriva" and the "all.rdz" ramdrive image has been copied and
> renamed to "mandinit.gz"  The normal installation label in their
> isolinux.cfg file is like this:
>  kernel alt0/vmlinuz
>  append initrd=alt0/all.rdz  automatic=method:cdrom acpi=ht vga=788
> splash=silent
> So in my new image, I'll make one more like this:
>  kernel mandriva
>  append initrd=mandinit.gz  automatic=method:cdrom acpi=ht vga=788
> splash=verbose
> (Ok, the splash wasn't necessary, but, darn I hate silent splash screens.)
> Repeat this for each installation involved.  Be careful not to forget
> to rename and overwrite and be careful not to loose track of the
> renames and forget to adjust your menu accordingly.  Well, I usually
> make a CD with these, so it's more troublesome to find out that I just
> burned a disc that I forgot to fully test first since in your case you
> have only to make new changes to your obviously read/write media
> instead of write once.
>
> Once you've gotten all the kernels and their ramdrives and any other
> needed files copied over and appropriately worked with, you'll want to
> change your syslinux.cfg file to include the code for the simple menu
> now.  Firstly, copy the menu.c32 file into that folder if you haven't
> already (you can get this from /syslinux-version/com32/modules/ of the
> archive.)  Change your default statement to menu.c32 so the menu is
> loaded by default, and I for one usually prefer to set prompt to 0.
> Add an ontimeout statement to load whatever options you want to be
> default if the user waits for the timer to run out without any
> keypresses (or don't if you don't want that of course.)  A while back
> there was a problem where the ontimeout statement wasn't calling
> labels correctly, so if you do use ontimeout, I personally feel it's
> easiest just to go ahead and put the full statement instead.  Eg:
> "ONTIMEOUT kernel append" where you have kernel, you just replace with
> the name of the kernel, and where you have append you put all the
> statements that are appended to that kernel.  This method will
> probably never stop working I suspect, so no matter what goes wrong,
> it should still work.
>
> Next up, under each label, create an extra option that says "MENU
> LABEL so-and-so" obviously replacing the so-and-so with a more
> appropriate spelled out title.  These don't have to be typed by the
> user (though if you place a carat '^' before a letter it marks that
> letter as a hotkey and the selection moves to it if the user presses
> that key) so just be thorough.  It can say Mandriva 2006 Powerpack for
> example, complete with spaces and all.  No 8.3 mangling there.  Only
> catch is, the menu doesn't hold a lot of text and will just cut off
> anything that doesn't fit on the screen, so make it fit or it looks
> silly.  While you're adding menu label statements, you may with to
> place a menu default statement under whichever item you want the
> cursor to sit on when it first starts if you want it to be anything
> other than the first one.  Personally, I get redundant so I have lots
> of failsafes in case something or other goes wrong (in the past I've
> triggered bugs without even noticing because the redundancy went right
> around them) so I like to put that there even if it's the first item
> for me.
>
> Once you've added nice little labels so the user is presented with
> something more useful than "mandriva", "fedora", "fedx64", etc, you
> might optionally want to add a like between the initial statements (eg
> stuff like default, ontimeout, etc) and the first label that says MENU
> TITLE and some sensable title.  Optional, but, kind of a nice touch.
> Well, save your file and try it all out at this point.  I may be
> forgetting something, but, if I have I've forgotten it, so can't think
> of what it is right now and think I'm done.  ^_^
> 




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