[syslinux] isohybrid and partition type 0x17

[Gene Cumm]

On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 7:58 AM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:
> There is no partition type associated with iso9660, since iso9660 is normally written to an unpartitioned device.  So the 0x96 thing is most likely some thing you guys simply made up.  (Consider the digits!)
>
> Andres Salomon <dilinger at queued.net> wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 21:25:43 -0700
>>"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 04/15/2013 08:31 PM, Andres Salomon wrote:
>>> > Hi,
>>> >
>>> > OLPC's Openfirmware (OFW) implementation chokes when attempting to
>>> > boot an iso created by isohybrid.  The problem is that OFW's
>>> > ISO-9660 support expects a partition type of 0x96 (CHRP ISO-9660,
>>> > according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_type).  I see
>>> > from
>>> >
>>http://git.kernel.org/cgit/boot/syslinux/syslinux.git/commit/utils/isohybrid.in?id=aee4e8fa73571eaca80ad43aa007523cde5d4567
>>> > that the partition type was originally 0x83 (Linux), and was
>>> > changed to 0x17 (hidden IFS) to satisfy windows.
>>> >
>>> > I'm wondering what's the correct partition type to actually use.
>>> > Does windows balk if 0x96 is used?  Should OFW be using 0x17, or
>>> > should isohybrid (and debian-installer) be using 0x96 for a
>>> > partition table containing an ISO-9660 filesystem?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Partition_type&diff=510296573&oldid=510086292

No external reference cited.  No reference to what "CHRP" means
(perhaps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Hardware_Reference_Platform
).  I'd certainly consider it "made up" by Matthiaspaul.  Perhaps
http://www.openfirmware.org/ofwg/bindings/chrp/chrp1_6d.ps page 56?

To me, this feels like arbitrary application of a foreign standard
(one that was specifically targeted to a completely different
architecture).

--
-Gene