[syslinux] embedded fs access?, was Re: Booting ISOs

Douglas McClendon dmc.lists at filteredperception.org
Fri Oct 5 15:07:22 PDT 2007


Peter wrote:
> Douglas McClendon wrote:
>> I believe this could be implemented in a fairly elegant way in syslinux, 
>> and would actually be useful in a multitude of situations.
>>
>> If I were to start to invest the time, I'd start looking at the isodump 
>> utilitity which now appears to be able to dump the bits from a 
>> particular file from an iso image specified by path. 
> I stumbled across this some days ago,
> http://www.mgerards.net/blog/?cat=4
> 
> He writes about booting from iso9660 using a "loopback" module in grub2,
> and the dist he is using is based on debian.  A hot on the plate
> packaged debian unstable, its called sidux. Docs about the fromiso
> cheatcode:
> http://manual.sidux.com/en/hd-install-opts-en.htm
> 
> Maybe it is possible to build something similar with a c32 program ?


Thanks!  The first link and the availability of the grub loopback 
feature was definitely news to me.  I have used grub in the past to boot 
custom fedora livecds, though moved to isolinux following the lead of 
the official fedora livecds.  While grub may have some disadvantages, it 
is pretty cool to know that I can use it already to implement a 
proof-of-concept of what I described, while waiting for myself or 
someone else to implement the same sort of thing in sys/isolinux.

The second link was also good for reference, though I already know the 
guts of all the initramfs issues that will be involved.

Thanks also hpa for confirming that the c32 would be the way to go, 
should I embark on the task.  Most likely I won't find the time in the 
near-term future, but maybe someday.

-dmc




More information about the Syslinux mailing list