[syslinux] Boot off FAT based ISO image?

Sam Liddicott sam at liddicott.com
Wed Sep 15 02:15:50 PDT 2010


  On 09/09/10 19:38, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> On 09/09/2010 09:23 AM, Sam Liddicott wrote:
>>    Is there a mix of SYSLINUX and ISOLINUX that can boot an ISO image
>> from a FAT file system? Sort of like MEMDISK but doesn't need to load
>> the entire great-big ISO into RAM or install an int-13 driver?
>> ...
> There has been talk of such a "mapdisk" system extension, but it is
> *way* different than anything else currently in Syslinux because it
> would require either the filesystem code to stay resident or (more
> likely) a huge extent map to be produced, stored in memory and then used
> to filter the INT 13h requests.
>
> It really isn't a bad idea, but it's nontrivial.

I've thought a lot about this; and realising that the init-ramdisk of 
legacy iso's would not be attempting to mount a nested iso anyway, there 
is no need for syslinux to provide a transparent mapping service for 
legacy isolinux; rather a new isolinux may be able to do it's own 
mapping directly using the vfat layer also used by syslinux.

This extra layer of indirection is probably within the bounds of my own 
capability if it suits you to accept such work?

Sam

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