[syslinux] hello world

[Ray Andrews]

On 01/31/2015 11:28 PM, Ferenc Wagner wrote:

> I for one don't expect insults after such a start.  Please share your
> thoughts, constructive feedback is always useful.  Even if there may be
> good reasons for some things being as they are.
Ok Feri, of course there is no reason for insults, but still, some 
groups take offense at any criticism.  If I sound bitchy it is only as 
feedback to help make the thing perfect.  I find GRUB to be a bloated 
monster so I've always used LILO, but Joachim says he will stop 
supporting it at the end of this year and that means that Syslinux will 
have to replace LILO for me.

You only loose your virginity once, which means that I can only give 
first impressions when they are first impressions, and of course I could 
be wrong about something.  Still, a good project takes care to make 
things easy for the beginner, so:

Docs:

The wiki I think should at the very first direct you to the correct 
'variant' for what media you are installing to (extlinux for me). As it 
is, on the web all the variants are often referred to generically  as 
'syslinux', and it's not till latter that you realize that you must find 
the correct variant. It would also be nice (tho probably much work), if 
each variant's page was complete. Jumping back and forth, one can become 
confused, for example 'syslinux' page says the device should be 
unmounted whereas 'extlinux' page says (right at the top, which is very 
nice) that the device should be mounted. And 'syslinux' seems able to 
install an MBR, but 'extlinux' seems not. (Why?)

Speaking of MBRs, I tried over and over and kept getting 'Non-system 
disk or disk error' when trying to install to a USB stick.  It turns out 
that a partition  must be flagged bootable on a USB stick even tho (with 
LILO, anyway) it doesn't matter at all on a HDD.  I understand that's a 
BIOS gotcha, not  the fault of  LILO or extlinux, however, perhaps there 
could be a check?  Or maybe it's just my dumb BIOS.

More information could be given about 'menu.c32'.  It's not clear where 
to find it, and when you do find  it there are three copies and it's not 
obvious which one you want.  Then you try your first boot from extlinux 
and see the error about 'libutil.c32', so I'd mention that in the the 
wiki along with 'menu.c32'. And, again, it's not mentioned at all in the 
'extlinux' page, so one is hopping back and forth.

Vs. LILO:

'SAY' is nice.
Longer labels is excellent.
I guess not having to reinstall after changing the config is nice, but 
the reinstall with LILO isn't much of a problem.

I miss LILOs 'boot =' and 'map =' and 'image =' features. It is nice to 
be able to have the first stage bootloader on one device and  the map 
and/or image on another and the root FS on yet another:

prompt
verbose = 1
install = menu

#boot    = /dev/fd0
boot    = /dev/sdb
#boot    = /dev/sdc

#map     = /boot/lilo.map-fd0-sdb2
map     = /boot/lilo.map-sdb-sdb3
#map     = /boot/lilo.map-sdb-sdb2

image  = /boot/vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-686-pae
initrd = /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-4-686-pae
root   = "LABEL=y5--5-Debian1"
label  = y5:D1:16.0-4

... I can boot anything from anything very easily, and one knows exactly 
what is going on. And everything is controlled from the one file.  I 
routinely boot from floppy MBR to another device simply because by 
changing from one floppy to another I can change my default boot.  And I 
can have as many map files as needed on the one '/boot' partition. It's 
indestructable.

I miss not being able to 'root = "LABEL=' since I do all my booting via 
labels.

When installing, I miss error checking (or is it there and I just did it 
perfect?)

... and those are my first impressions ;-)