[syslinux] isohybrid has 2 variants

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Ady:
> Since both included variants are currently different, and both 
> variants have problems

I am not aware of problems of the perl version. It is just lacking
the newer features which support EFI/GPT and Mac/APM.
The known bugs of isohybrid.c are with those newer features.
  http://www.syslinux.org/archives/2012-May/017843.html
  http://www.syslinux.org/archives/2012-May/017871.html


> Ideally, the Perl variant should get updated at least with the 
> patches that the C variant already includes

As a programmer who knows the task, i'd say that C is the right
language to implement isohybrid. It introduces the least
dependencies and is well suited for the necessary byte operations.
Of course the build system of SYSLINUX would have to produce
a suitable executable from isohybrid.c.

The executable has hardcoded MBR templates. I once got instructed
by hpa, not to mix MBR from one SYSLINUX version with the
isolinux.bin boot images from other versions.
This applies to the executable from isohybrid.c and to isohybrid.pl.

So my proposal would be to fix isohybrid.c and to declare
isohybrid.pl frozen and deprecated.
(As long as isohybrid.in exists it will be able to adapt to
 the MBR templates of new SYSLINUX versiosn.)


Ian Bannerman:
> While I did know the .exe variant was not official / untrusted,

Is there a special reason for this ? (Except the known bugs which
affect Linux binaries, too.)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas