[syslinux] "isolinux.bin missing or corrupt" when booting USB flash drive in old PC

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Ady wrote:
> In the last few years, ISOLINUX has received very low attention, both 
> upstream and downstream.

Nevertheless the well established Linux distros use it for their ISOs.
Most have adopted mjg's isohybrid --uefi layout. Only SuSE does it
different.

So for me with my xorriso hat on, ISOLINUX is as an important partner
as is GRUB.


> So I' am about to (attempt to) provide a 
> generic suggestion for you (and for interested users / developers).
> [...]
> What I would suggest would be to have a simple, very small minimal set 
> of ISO images,

I have to confess that i never set up an ISOLINUX system myself.
My tests are done by repacking existing ISOs. I take their MBRs, files
and directories and then add the various boot records and pointers.

So i can mostly offer my advise with packing up the ISOs, not with
preparing their files.


> Having floppy-emulation ISO images could be part of the set.

That would mean a SYSLINUX installation in the floppy image.
If a "2.88 meg diskette" is too small, the next size would be an emulated
hard disk. (We would not have to find out how many blocks a diskette
image really has to have.)


> Having simple minimal boot images [...] perhaps [...] can help users
> and support

I am not opposed to such a collection. But somebody needs to set up
the ISOLINUXes or SYSLINUXes before we can pack them up as ISOs.


> "the flexible way" 
> and/or auxiliary tools should be _much_ more effective and less 
> time-consuming for troubleshooting.

It is always worth a try if the isohybrid way fails.

I wonder, though, whether creating a bootable hard disk from an ISO
is really system agnostic. I.e. does it work with all distro ISOs ?
There must be some reason why the distro maintainers took the plight to
adopt isohybrid and mjg layout.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas