[syslinux] Growing out of floppy images, what's the best alternative?

[Lindgren Daniel]

Hi.

We've been using PXELINUX for years, to kick off OS installations
(floppy images) and booting assorted tools. The addition of ISO support
in memdisk opened up some new alternatives that we also use, e.g.
booting WinPE ISO images over PXE.

Today I downloaded a BIOS for a HP EliteBook 8440p and discovered that
the BIOS file is 3 MB. I could probably squeeze it onto a 2.88 MB floppy
image by compressing it and uncompressing it to a RAM-drive during
execution, but I started looking at alternative solutions that would be
more future proof. There are ways to make floppy images larger than 2.88
MB, but a solution that moves the limit to several hundred MB's would be
preferred.

I'm thinking of making a bootable DOS (Windows 98 version) FAT16 or
FAT32 ISO image with hard disk emulation, booted using memdisk with ISO
support. By making it an ISO image we would also have the option of
burning it to a physical CD/DVD and/or use the ISO to boot virtual
machines without network support. Using hard disk emulation removes the
need for DOS CD drivers, which (I hope/guess) makes it less prone to
BIOS-related problems.

There are several variations possible:

- Skipping ISO and booting HDD images directly over PXE. Removes the
possibility of making real CD/DVD discs and virtual machine booting.
- ISOLINUX ISO with bootable floppy image(s) that can access the ISO for
storage of larger files. Adds at least one level of maintenance.
- ISOLINUX ISO with HDD image(s). Adds at least one level of
maintenance.

Anyone else using a similar method to boot machines to DOS for
maintenance and troubleshooting? Some other method?

Cheers,
Daniel