[syslinux] GFXBoot status

[Gene Cumm]

On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 15:46, Sebastian Herbszt <herbszt at gmx.de> wrote:
> Gene Cumm wrote:
>>
>> It appears that there's something wrong with gfxboot.c32 from Syslinux
>> 4.00, 4.01 and 4.02.
>
> gfxboot.c32 didn't change in relevant parts between 3.86 and 4.x.

I didn't test 3.84-3.86 but I believe I tested the above three.  I
didn't realize until after I sent the first message that it was
introduced in 3.84.

>> When I create an ISO based off of Ubuntu 10.10
>> (Maverick Merrkat) Alpha 3 x64 desktop ISO and use the official
>> binaries, it has an issue and presents a window-like entity in the
>> top-left corner, presumably with error/debug information.
>
> Can you provide me such a broken iso?

Gladly.  http://gnx.ath.cx/~gene/2t.iso.xz will work nicely for this.
gfxboot0.c32 is from Alpha 3 but the remaining Syslinux binaries
should all be official from 4.02.  I built this by copying what I
thought were the relevant files from the above ISO, renaming
gfxboot.c32 to gfxboot0.c32, and inserting some binaries from
Syslinux-4.02 so as to be minimally invasive.  This will attempt to
load the official 4.02 gfxboot.c32 by default.  Escape, the display of
one of the images and some sort of timeout seem to be the only things
that work appropriately in the official version.  Calling
'gfxboot0.c32 bootlogo' from the "boot: " prompt does work nicely
(except all the files are missing to actually boot).

>> Replacing
>> gfxboot.c32 with the one from the Ubuntu ISO, everything works as
>> expected.  Compiling from current git head results in the window-like
>> entity.  Applying Colin Watson's first uncommitted patch resolves the
>> issue.
>
> Unfortunatelly Colin didn't answer my questions yet.

Unfortunate, yes.  At least Ubuntu has moved away from the gfxboot
patch and gfxboot.com to gfxboot.c32 for their next version (although
I don't think they ever used gfxboot.com).

>> hpa/maks: When I applied Colin's patches, they all applied cleanly to
>> the current head for me.
>>
>> --
>> -Gene
>
> Sebastian

-- 
-Gene