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

Ady Ady ady-sf at hotmail.com
Sun Mar 19 12:06:37 PDT 2017


> 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.
> 
 
 
@Thomas,

I was referring to the needed attention from developers, package 
maintainers and distro maintainers. Yes, mjg's technique is _used_, but 
the whole isohybrid subject is not "maintained" when needed, and the 
same goes to ISOLINUX. I am not referring to usage, but about code 
development / maintenance. We both have participated in long 
discussions, while developers of The Syslinux Project and package 
maintainers ignore the subject.


> 
> > 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.
> 
 
 
I am aware of that. My suggestion was/ is about taking the opposite 
point of view. Kernels and other files are not really required in the 
images when the problem arises in the bootloader itself or even before 
that step.
 

> 
> > 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.)
> 
 
 
A floppy-emulation is enough (regarding size) when the objective is to 
test BIOS' compatibility. Once again, the ISO image doesn't need to 
include kernels and what not, just (some of) the Syslinux-related 
files, for convenience.


> 
> > 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.
> 
 
 
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The official archives located 
in kernel.org already contain the binaries. The only (yet, very 
important) inconvenience is that compilation issues cannot be resolved 
by only using official upstream binaries.


> 
> > "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 mildly "disagree". When official isohybrid images fail to get to the 
bootloader step, then "the flexible way" is the most effective 
troubleshooting method, by far. Moreover, under certain conditions it 
would take less than 10 minutes for a common (newbie) user to use this 
method.

Considering that auxiliary tools (that mostly automate the whole 
procedure) are available, the most difficult obstacle is the 
"maintenance" and "support" I mentioned above. From distro maintainers 
(among others), users commonly get "you are on your own" (or no 
replies).
 

> 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.
> 
 
 
Simply: less workload (and, in some cases, lazziness). They distribute 
a/one "one-fit-all" image. Except that it is not really "fit all".

As an example, dd'ing the diag/*.* images to a USB device doesn't even 
require an ISO image. Another: there is a reason for memtest86+ to use 
a floppy-emulation ISO image and additional options for other cases. 
And memtest86+ is not the only one that chooses to provide different 
type of images according to the usage.

Anyway, my "gut feeling" ATM is that we won't get anything actually 
done in the current conditions.

Perhaps David is capable of finding what actually works for his old 
Pentium 4 computers (and maybe even post his results?). I hope so.

(I am still guessing / betting that using an older version of ISOLINUX 
(e.g. v.4.xx, isolinux.bin<32KiB) with adequate CHS values in the 
isohybrid command and writing the image to a USB device of 1GB would 
have had better chances than the official Debian image in a 4GB USB 
device. And, as I said, "the flexible way" would have even better 
compatibility).


 
> Have a nice day :)
> 
> Thomas
> 
 
Regards,
Ady.




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