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

H. Peter Anvin hpa at zytor.com
Mon Nov 25 13:35:47 PST 2013


On 11/24/2013 12:56 AM, Ady wrote:
>> The very early code that emits this message is *identical* between
>> Syslinux 4 and Syslinux 6.  The biggest difference is the size of
>> isolinux.bin, so it is possible that that might be the source of the
>> problem.
>>
>> 	-hpa
>  
> I wonder if isolinux.bin should be limited to max. 16 sectors (of 
> 2KiB each), as that's the default limit in mkisofs "-G 
> <generic_boot_image>" option.
> 
> If that happens to be the case, perhaps there is some additional 
> option so to reserve more sectors for the boot image?
> 
> Is there any method to reduce the size of isolinux.bin?
> 

No, that is irrelevant.  isolinux actually only relies on the firmware
loading 2K, because, well, some firmware is that dumb.

I am suspecting that the difference is that the new isolinux.bin crosses
the 64K threshold (as it is larger than ~32K) whereas the old one did
not; this might have exposed a latent bug.

	-hpa




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