[syslinux] Module Versioning

[Pete Batard]

Hi Zoltan,

On 2016.03.07 20:58, BALATON Zoltan via Syslinux wrote:
> What I don't get is why do you have to rebuild the boot loader in the
> first place. Most of these isos (including the Tails one) are hybrid
> which should work if you just dd/rawrite it on the USB drive.

1. As you know, many ISOs aren't ISOHybrids.

2. Regardless, Rufus is smart enough to detect ISOHybrids and prompt the 
user if they want to write in DD mode, or extract the files to FAT32 and 
make the drive bootable with the process I described. So it's not like 
it's not giving users the choice.

3. Yet, the reason why some people might not be too kind to ISOHybrid 
should be quite apparent here [1]. When written to USB in DD mode, most 
ISOHybrids that support UEFI will either have 2 partitions, with only 
the ESP visible from Windows, or worse, a single partition using a Linux 
filesystem that Windows will not see at all. So, from the perspective of 
a Windows user (remember Windows is a Rufus app), who might not be that 
tech savvy and who is attempting to run a Linux live system or install 
for the first time, all they see is that their USB flash drive has 
suddenly shrunk in capacity or disappeared from their file explorer 
altogether. And I hope you'll spare me a "well, it's a user's problem - 
they should know", because, in the many downloads that Rufus sees, quite 
a few people are likely to be confused by this as we're not dealing with 
a a handful of computer savvy people here. So my point is: A Windows' 
user first Linux experience should be made friendly, not scary, and as 
cool as the ISOHybrids concept is, they aren't all that great in that 
respect, at least from a Windows perspective...

Also with regards to #3, what if a user needs to copy a wifi firmware 
blob to get connectivity on after installing my Linux system (and that 
blob won't fit in the ESP)? Or want to modify the distro packages? Or 
want to copy files/doc/whatever on that USB? Don't you think that a user 
might feel more at ease if they can still access the whole content of 
their drive from Windows, instead of just a small part... if there's a 
small part to even access at all?

> Rufus
> seems to do something much more complicated than this, risking breaking
> the boot loader of the iso while rebuilding it.

Because, sometimes that's what it takes to make an ISO to USB conversion 
process more intuitive for users who aren't familiar at all with 
booting, partitioning, Linux filesystems and other stuff. Even 
prompting, as Rufus does, to decide between DD mode or ISO extract mode 
for ISOHybrid is likely to be very confusing for a lot of users.

> If the iso already
> supports booting from USB no rebuilding should be needed, if it does not
> changing it automatically for something it was not intended to do could
> either work if you're lucky or fail if you're not.

 From what I could also see on reddit, a few people seem to have trouble 
with the tails recommended way creating an USB flash drive, or even when 
using straight DD mode, and there have been a few instances where Rufus 
non DD mode seemed to sort them out (which may very well have been due 
to BIOS/UEFI settings, or something else that suddenly became irrelevant 
when using Rufus, but still).

I could also say something about the ISOHybrid _HACK_, which clearly is 
not something that was ever intended by the people who designed 
ISO-9660, and that could "either work if you're lucky or fail if you're 
not". Looking at the recent history of this mailing list, it does seem 
to me like ISOHybrid can be a bit of a headache...

Regards,

/Pete

[1] 
https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/499b5c/usb_stick_capacity_shrunk_to_2mb/