[syslinux] binaries in syslinux-4.02.tar.bz2

[Alex Zeffertt]

Hi list,

I've noticed that there are a number of binaries in syslinux-4.02.tar.bz2, which 
seems a bit odd.  Even stranger is that I get different syslinux behaviour 
depending on whether I rebuild these or use the ones from the tarball.

To use the ones from the tarball I:

  $ make clean
  $ make installer
  $ make install-all

... whereas to rebuild everything from source I:

  $ make spotless
  $ make all
  $ make installer
  $ make install-all

If I reuse the binaries from the tarball I get the following output after 
control is passed to my MBR:


   SYSLINUX 4.02 2010-07-21  Copyright (C) 1994-2010 H. Peter Anvin et al
   boot:
   Booting...
   ERR: Not a Multiboot bootloader!

... whereas if I rebuild everything from source I get no output at all.

I tried looking for the error message "Not a Multiboot bootloader" in the 
syslinux source but I couldn't find it anywhere, which made me wonder if it 
comes from one of those binaries.

Does anybody know why the source tarball contains binaries?  I feel I need to 
understand this before I can start debugging my boot failure.

Thanks in advance,

Alex