[syslinux] Creating LiveCD with EFI option?

Fri Jul 4 11:51:34 PDT 2014

On 4 Jul 2014 at 11:57, Email wrote:

Date sent:      	Fri, 4 Jul 2014 11:57:36 -0400
From:           	Email <email at missionaccomplish.com>
To:             	syslinux at zytor.com
Organization:   	Mission Accomplish, Inc.
Subject:        	Re: [syslinux] Creating LiveCD with EFI option?

> I have been using syslinux-6.x along with isohybrid --mac and --efi
> option to create a usb hybrid iso with EFI support. The thing with EFI
> is that you'll need to use grub as your bootloader for EFI but
> isohybrid does setup the proper partition schema for EFI.
> 
> You'll need to use the following to generate an iso that works.
> 
> xorriso -as mkisofs -J -R -l -V some-vol-label \
>   -o ../image.iso \
>   -c isolinux/boot.cat \
>   -b isolinux/isolinux.bin \
>      -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
>   -eltorito-alt-boot \
>   -e isolinux/efiboot.img -no-emul-boot -eltorito-alt-boot \
>   -e isolinux/macboot.img -eltorito-id "MAC" -no-emul-boot \
>   ../src
> 
> isolinux/efiboot.img is a vfat image that contains:
> * EFI/BOOT/bootx32.efi - created with grub2-mkimage
> * EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg - standard grub.cfg
> 
> isolinux/macboot.img is a bit more complicated but if you don't need
> your iso to boot on macosx hardware you can ommit this flag. This file
> contains:
> 
> * .VolumeIcon.icns - icon for EFI boot image in macosx
> * EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.efi
> * EFI/BOOT/grub.cfg
> * mach_kernel - dummy kernel required for boot
> * System/Library/CoreServices/boot.efi - basically a blessed
> BOOTX64.efi * System/Library/CoreServices/grub.cfg *
> System/Library/CoreServices/SystemVersion.plist
> 
> You can look at mkefiboot.py from fedora's lorax package to see how
> this was generated. I have a customized copy which generates the
> macboot.img without the shim support.
> 
> After you've done generating the iso image with xorriso you can just
> run:
> 
> isohybrid --uefi --mac image.iso then test this image with qemu and
> http://tianocore.sourceforge.net/wiki/OVMF with the -bios option to
> qemu.
> 
> Good luck and happy debugging!
> 
> 

Thanks. I'll have to take a look at that an compare it with the current options. 
I have had people use the regular cd image on intel macs, so will have to 
look into that as well. 

> On Thu, 3 Jul 2014 15:26:31 +0200
> Klaus Knopper <syslinux at knopper.net> wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > On Thu, Jul 03, 2014 at 10:58:11PM +1000, Michael D. Setzer II
> > wrote:
> > > I've been using various versions of syslinux as the boot loader
> > > for the g4l project that I have been the maintainer of since 2004.
> > > It was already using syslinux, so I've just updated it over the
> > > years, and currently have it use 5.10 version, but have done test
> > > builds with the 6.x versions.
> > > 
> > > Recently had request from to users about EFI support, and one
> > > suggested that virtualbox has option for testing, so I cloned the
> > > current testing of the ISO to and EFI format, but just get a
> > > shell, so it requires some more steps. 
> > > 
> > > Did some searching, but haven't found anything that seems to have
> > > the exact steps. Also, not sure if I could make a single iso that
> > > would work with both, or have to create two different versions. In
> > > testing 6.x of syslinux, I just copied the files  to a different
> > > directory and replace the 5.x versions with 6.x versions, and
> > > build process remained the same.
> > 
> > You may check the current version of Knoppix 7.3 (or 7.2), which
> > contains a efi/boot directory with a patched version of syslinux.efi
> > that will read the standard syslinux.cfg file for 32bit, and
> > syslnx64.cfg for 64bit. This version, when copied to USB flash disk,
> > is know to work in both cases, the standard BIOS (called CSM in EFI)
> > or EFI mode, just no secure boot possible since the boot loader is
> > not signed.
> > 
> > Seems to work on many notebooks set to EFI-boot, just apple seems to
> > have problems reinitializing the graphics card after having booted
> > via syslinux-efi (system invisibly boots to the desktop, but screen
> > stays blank, no graphics).
> > 
> > For testing in a virtual environment, I use
> > 
> > kvm -m 2000 -monitor stdio -soundhw es1370 -L Ovmf/ -hda sda.img
> > -fda fd0.img
> > 
> > where directory Ovmf contains the open source EFI firmware from
> > http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tianocore/index.php?title=OVMF
> > 
> > I did not test efi boot from CD yet, the above scenario is just for
> > USB flash disks with a primary FAT32 partition, as expected by the
> > EFI firmware.
> > 
> > Regards
> > -Klaus
> > _______________________________________________
> > Syslinux mailing list
> > Submissions to Syslinux at zytor.com
> > Unsubscribe or set options at:
> > http://www.zytor.com/mailman/listinfo/syslinux
> 
> 
> -- 
> Thank you,
> Fernando Reyes
> GPG BDD75DD7
> Mission Accomplish, Inc.
> http://missionaccomplish.com
> Tel: 7187100008
> Cell: 3479275477
> _______________________________________________
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+----------------------------------------------------------+
  Michael D. Setzer II -  Computer Science Instructor      
  Guam Community College  Computer Center                  
  mailto:mikes at kuentos.guam.net                            
  mailto:msetzerii at gmail.com
  http://www.guam.net/home/mikes
  Guam - Where America's Day Begins                        
  G4L Disk Imaging Project maintainer 
  http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/
+----------------------------------------------------------+

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