[syslinux] Converting from isolinux to extlinux

[H. Peter Anvin]

Dogsbody wrote:
> 
> I would like to install a custom CD distribution on a system via serial 
> interface (that bit I can do) but the system doesn't have a CD-ROM drive!  I'm 
> trying to copy the ISO to the disk and boot from that.
> 
> So far I have done this...
> - Net boot the system from a server that is provided for troubleshooting
> - fdisk, wipe all partitions and create one 800MB disk
> - mkfs ext3 the partition
> - mount the partition
> - wget the iso image onto it
> - mount the iso image as loopback
> - copy the loopback image files to the partition
> 
> Now the original CD used ISOLINUX as the bootloader so I *thought* I could use 
> EXTLINUX to boot this partition and install the OS!?
> 
> So far I have done...
> ln -s /mnt/sda1/isolinux /mnt/sda1/extlinux
> cp /mnt/sda1/extlinux/isolinux.cfg /mnt/sda1/extlinux/extlinux.cfg

That should be "extlinux.conf".

> bin/extlinux -i /mnt/sda1/extlinux
> cat syslinux-3.36/mbr/mbr.bin > /dev/sda
> 
> ... bit that didn't work :-/
> 
> Any hints would be welcome! :-)

Note that even if you can boot, there is no guarantee that the OS 
installer will be able to deal with not coming from a CD.  That's beyond 
  syslinux' control.

	-hpa