[syslinux] Syslinux 5.00 - Doesn't boot my system / Not passing the kernel options to the kernel?

[Matt Fleming]

On Fri, 2013-01-04 at 23:32 +0100, Igor Sverkos wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Matt Fleming wrote:
> > The problem seems to be that your initramfs isn't being loaded. I
> > suspect that you're running into the buffer overflow bug in
> > new_linux_kernel(). I've pushed a fix to git, are you able to build it
> > and see whether things now work for you?
> 
> I tried to build, but it will fail:
> 
> >>> Compiling source in
> /var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/syslinux-99999999/work/syslinux-99999999 ...
> make -j5 -l3.95 CC=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-gcc installer
> perl version.pl version version.mk '< := @'
> make -r installer-local
> make[1]: Entering directory
> `/var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/syslinux-99999999/work/syslinux-99999999'
> make[1]: Nothing to be done for `installer-local'.
> make[1]: Leaving directory
> `/var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/syslinux-99999999/work/syslinux-99999999'
> set -e ; for i in libinstaller mtools linux extlinux utils; do make -r
> -C $i all ; done
> make[1]: Entering directory
> `/var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/syslinux-99999999/work/syslinux-99999999/libinstaller'
> make[1]: *** No rule to make target `../core/ldlinux.bss', needed by
> `bootsect_bin.c'.  Stop.
> make[1]: Leaving directory
> `/var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/syslinux-99999999/work/syslinux-99999999/libinstaller'
> make: *** [installer] Error 2
> 
> 
> When I do it by hand (clone, switch, make), the make call will fail with
> this error:
> 
> python menugen.py --input=test2.menu --output=test2.c
> --template=adv_menu.tpl
>   File "menugen.py", line 103
>     print "Error before line %d" % self.lineno
>                                ^
> SyntaxError: invalid syntax
> make[2]: *** [test2.c] Error 1
> make[2]: Leaving directory
> `/var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/syslinux-99999999/work/syslinux-99999999/com32/cmenu'
> make[1]: *** [all] Error 2
> make[1]: Leaving directory
> `/var/tmp/portage/sys-boot/syslinux-99999999/work/syslinux-99999999/com32'
> make: *** [all] Error 2

Hmm.. I dunno why you're seeing that error.

> I hope I am using the right branch. I am cloning from
> <git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/boot/syslinux/syslinux.git> and branch
> into "elflink".

Yep, that's the correct repository and branch. I just cloned it and
typed 'make' and everything built just fine.

> Not sure if it requires special steps, when building from git. Maybe you
> can provide a source tarball, like you did with the release source tarballs?

I suspect the problem is that you're using portage to build it, which
probably only has rules to build from the release tarballs, not from
git. The steps are different because the tarballs are distributed with
some binary objects in them, whereas with git you need to build
everything from scratch.

I've just put a Syslinux-5.01-pre1 tarball up at,

http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/Testing/5.01/

> >> BTW: Syslinux 5.00 still cannot boot from mdraid metadata 1.2.
> > 
> > Is this a regression? Has Syslinux ever supported mdraid metadata 1.2?
> 
> No, afaik. But I found a discussion from June 2010
> <http://www.syslinux.org/archives/2010-June/014813.html> that you were
> working on this. Not sure how it ended.

Dunno, looks like Peter was working on this.

-- 
Matt Fleming, Intel Open Source Technology Center