[syslinux] Fwd: Fail to set up UEFI syslinux on ArchLinux USB Flash Drive

[alex lupu]

This is a post I sent by mistake directly to Ady without a reply to all
(i.e., to the thread "Fail to set up UEFI syslinux on ArchLinux USB Flash
Drive")
It should go between Ady's post of Sun Mar 15 13:23:26 PDT 2015 and Ady's
post of Mon Mar 16 06:03:58 PDT 2015
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: alex lupu <alupu01 at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 7:07 PM
Subject: Re: [syslinux] Fail to set up UEFI syslinux on ArchLinux USB Flash
Drive
To: Ady <ady-sf at hotmail.com>

On Sun, Mar 15, 2015 at 4:23 PM, Ady via Syslinux <syslinux at zytor.com>
wrote:

Hi Ady,

Thank you for the reply.

1.  I'll start with the end of your post, if I may,
> Perhaps you might want to start a forum topic in ArchLinux.

As a reminder (going down memory lane), you were very helpful
once in helping me point to a problem,

http://www.syslinux.org/archives/2013-April/019817.html

which turned out to be a bug,

http://www.syslinux.org/archives/2013-April/019822.html

So you cannot blame me for expecting the same patience, expertise
and help in troubleshooting this new problem first with Syslinx
and, if need be, later with ArchLinux.
_As an example_, we might discover ArchLinux do not have the latest
UEFI files/docummentation from you.
So please bear with me for the time being.

2.
>> In BIOS, select ArchLinux entry

> Just a minor detail (but it helps for understanding each other)...
> You probably mean "in UEFI firmware", not "in BIOS".
> And yet, this is still not clear (at least, not to me).

We're in sync here (although not immediately apparent :)
I'm resonably familiar with UEFI.  Above, by "in BIOS" I meant
going to my machine's "BIOS", i.e., in my paricular case/motherboard,
Boot
Hit Delete key
Hit F8
and then select from among the _UEFI_ menu entries
the subject "ArchLinux" entry (and watch what happens).  Unfortunately,
instead of the expected nice menu created by me in 'syslinux.cfg' I get
the problem "boot:" prompt in the middle of an otherwise blank screen :(

3.
> You probably should double-check that you actually have a "syslinux.cfg"
> in the same directory where your "syslinux.efi" file is located.

I had thousend-checked and the files in 'EFI/syslinux/' are as originally
listed in my OP (where I selected only a few "important" files).
For reference here,
- Used Arch syslinux files from /usr/lib/syslinux/efi64/
(copied to EFI/syslinux/ on /dev/sdd1 (see below)):
 ...
134744  ldlinux.e64
121848  liblua.c32
 27688  libmenu.c32
  6136  linux.c32
 31720  menu.c32
 10328  syslinux.c32
   400  syslinux.cfg    (created by me - "Text boot menu" format)
176456  syslinux.efi

4.
>> boot: syslinux.cfg
>> Failed to load COM32 file syslinux.cfg.c32
>> boot: syslinux
>> Undefined symbol FAIL: lua_pushlightuserdata
>> Failed Failed to load COM32 file syslinux.c32
>> boot:  etc., etc ...

> Those are not accepted commands, so you cannot expect adequate results.

Those were attempted by me in order to maybe guess a "meaningful" response
to the "boot:" prompt and/or maybe in hopes some syslinux people to guess
(in their turn :) where I was and/or what was/went wrong.
Obviously, something "behind" that "boot:" prompt spoke some "syslinux",
see the "c32", "lua_pushlightuserdata",
"Failed to load COM32 file syslinux.c32" clues there.

BTW,  from the "boot:" situation I could recover only by rebooting the
machine
(or is it by reuefiing the machine? :)

5.
This is the content of the 'syslinux.cfg' file
 UI menu.c32
 PROMPT 0

 MENU TITLE Boot Menu
 TIMEOUT 100
 DEFAULT arch

 LABEL arch
         MENU LABEL Arch Linux
         LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
         APPEND root=/dev/sdd2 rw
         INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img

 LABEL archfallback
         MENU LABEL Arch Linux Fallback
         LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
         APPEND root=/dev/sdd2 rw
         INITRD ../initramfs-linux-fallback.img

Note:  During the numerous tests I made, I played with
UI menu.c32 (in/out), PROMPT (0/1),
to no avail.

I'd also like to append this "parted" summary of the subject USB drive
to the documentation I submitted in my OP:

Model: Kingston DataTraveler G3 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdd: 4007MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Number  Start   End     Size    File system     Name
​ ​
Flags
 1      17.4kB  537MB   537MB   fat32           EFI System
​ ​
boot, esp
 2      537MB   3787MB  3251MB  ext2            Linux filesystem
 3      3787MB  4007MB  220MB   linux-swap(v1)  Linux swap

Thanks,
​-- Alex​