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

[Alex Zeffertt]

On 22/09/10 19:15, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> On 09/22/2010 07:55 AM, Alex Zeffertt wrote:
>>
>>     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.
>>
>
> What are you trying to boot?  If you're trying to boot a Multiboot
> kernel you have to use mboot.c32.
>
> 	-hpa
>

Hi,

This is my extlinux.conf stanza:

   kernel mboot.c32
   append /boot/xen.gz dom0_mem=752M lowmem_emergency_pool=1M 
crashkernel=64M at 32M console= vga=mode-0x0311 --- /boot/vmlinuz-2.6-xen 
root=LABEL=root-nfsnhryc ro xencons=hvc console=hvc0 console=tty0 quiet vga=785 
splash --- /boot/initrd-2.6-xen.img

What I've found is:

  1. If I use the binaries in the tarball (make install-all) then the above 
boots fine

  2. If I use CentOS 5.5(*) to rebuild the installer (make clean; make 
installer; make install-all) then I get a syslinux prompt and the error "ERR: 
Not a Multiboot bootloader!"

  3. If I use CentOS 5.5(*) to rebuild everything (make spotless; make all; make 
installer; make install-all) then I don't even get a syslinux prompt.

  4. If I use Debian Lenny to rebuild everything, then booting works seamlessly.


(*) A fresh CentOS 5.5 chroot, but with nasm-2.09.01.

In each of the above I used the same /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf and the same 
images (xen.gz, vmlinux-2.6-xen, initrd-2.6-xen.img).

 From my point of view I'm now happy since I can use Lenny to build my RPM.  But 
if we knew why this was happening we could make the Makefiles more robust, and 
perhaps this would remove the necessity to include binaries in the source tarball.

Regards,

Alex