[syslinux] installing only pxelinux?

[Steve Rikli]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 09:52:57AM +0200, Ady wrote:
> 
> > The wiki (http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/PXELINUX) still says:
> > 
> >    "copy pxelinux.0 (from the SYSLINUX distribution) and any
> >     kernel or initrd images that you want to boot"
> > 
> > like I've been doing forever, but how do I know what else I need, and
> > whether I'm missing libs or something they require?
> > 
> > I was thinking of 'make install', but Makefile apparently compiles
> > everything, and if that's the preferred way I'll go that route; mostly
> > I'm looking for some guidance:  what's the "best" way to populate a
> > /tftpboot/ with the necessary PXELINUX files?
>  
> No need to 'make' anything :). Search the Syslinux wiki for "Library 
> modules". I'm not saying it will solve every single problem you might 
> have with version 6.02, but it will give you a generic answer to your 
> question.

Thanks Ady; I had previously found this:

   http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Library_modules

which was indeed helpful in sorting out module dependencies.

But more generally:  is copying files from the syslinux distribution
into your /tftpboot/ dir still the best recommended way to "install
pxelinux"?

> Regarding /tftpboot/ and mixing BIOS and EFI files, this ML has some 
> prior threads about the same topic already. Unfortunately, there is 
> no easy way to effectively search the ML and find what you might be 
> looking for, so you might need to manually go through the mailing 
> list archives.

Google has been relatively effective at finding pretty good info both
on the Syslinux wiki and elsewhere; e.g. the Redhat/Fedora example
dhcp.conf for PXE with EFI, which I can probably adapt to my needs.

But the common (almost only?) advice I could find for "how to install
pxelinux" was either copying individual files to /tftpboot/ (ala the
simple advice from the syslinux wiki and elsewhere, like I've been
doing for years) or installing a 3rd-party package from one of the
Linux distributions and thereby ending up with e.g. /usr/bin/syslinux,
/usr/share/syslinux/*.c32, and more.

That latter method seems overkill for setting up pxelinux in a tftp
server, and I'd prefer to get the original distribution from syslinux
than a possibly-modified Linux distribution in any case.

If the ole tried & true method is still the right way, I'm entirely
happy to keep doing things that way, and do my own experimentation to
figure out what modules (and their lib dependencies) I want to use
besides the core.  Just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something
new and simple.

Thanks,
sr.