[syslinux] Sysinux 6 will not boot ISOs on BIOS (i.e. pre-UEFI) systems

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

the riddle about the failing repacks is solved, thanks
to ISOLINUX wiki:
  "does support long (level 2) ISO 9660 plain filenames"
The archlinux ISO makes use of such names. So i have to follow
the wiki advise
  "use the "-l" or "-iso-level 2" option to mkisofs"

Thus, a CD-bootable archlinux ISO without isohybrid and EFI
can be repacked by

  # mount -o loop archlinux-2013.11.01-dual.iso /mnt

  $ xorriso -as mkisofs \
      -o arch_repacked.iso \
      -c isolinux/boot.cat \
      -b isolinux/isolinux.bin \
         -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
      -V "ARCH_201311" \
      -iso-level 2 \
      --sort-weight 2 /isolinux/isolinux.bin \
      /mnt

The option --sort-weight is added here in order to force
isolinux.bin to a low block address. Just in case that 20078,
as in the original image, is too high.

--------------

I came to the helpful wiki when searching for instructions how
to use the "boot:" prompt.
Are there any ?

--------------

As it seems that booting failed because some long filename was
not found:
Would it be possible to get an error message about missing files ?

If not, then i propose to add option -iso-level 2 to the example
in
  http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/ISOLINUX#How_Can_I_Make_a_Bootable_CD_With_ISOLINUX.3F

--------------

Have a nice day :)

Thomas