[syslinux] syslinux can't read the configuration file on USB

Noam Meltzer tsnoam at gmail.com
Sun May 16 13:08:44 PDT 2010


On Sun, May 16, 2010 at 10:49 PM, Gert Hulselmans <gerth at zytor.com> wrote:

> Noam Meltzer wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have the following weird problem with syslinux, and I was hoping
> > that some1 on this list might be able to help:
> >
> > I am using syslinux 3.86 on CentOS-5.4 64bit.
> > I'm creating a custom installation image for my distribution
> > (customized centos). I first create a file with the image, and later
> > on I write it to a USB disk. This procedure have been working quite
> > good for a very long time.
> >
> > Recently I made some changes to my distro (added more files under one
> > of the subdirectories), and started getting the following error
> > messages when the PC boots with the USB disk:
> > ---
> > Unknown keyword in configuration file: <<<garbage>>>
> > Unknown keyword in configuration file: <<<garbage>>>
> > Unknown keyword in configuration file: <<<garbage>>>
> > No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive found!
> > boot:
> > ---
> >
> > Naturallly, since there's no configuration, the syslinux is an unusable
> > state.
> >
> > I discovered that if during the creation of the image, I don't add one
> > of the rpm_dirX sub directories, the problem disappears. (any of them,
> > it doesn't matter)
> >
> > The size of the USB image is exactly 2GB and the contents of the
> > filesystem is approximately 1.6GB.
> >
> > The file system looks something like this:
> >
> > /ISOs/custom.iso
> > /Builds/version/RPMs/rpm_dir1/{many rpms here}
> > /Builds/version/RPMs/rpm_dir2/{many rpms here}
> > /Builds/version/RPMs/rpm_dir3/{many rpms here}
> > /custom.msg
> > /initrd.img
> > /ldlinux.sys         (got here after running syslinux)
> > /syslinux.cfg
> > /vmlinuz
> >
> >
> Can you try syslinux-4.00-pre45:
> http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/Testing/
>
> In Syslinux 4.xx, filesystems are implemented in C instead of assembler.
> So Syslinux 4.xx may work.
>


Hi,

Sorry, I should have mentioned it, but I tried 4.00-pre40 and I had the same
problem...

- Noam



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