[syslinux] efi config hang

[Ady Ady]

First, I'm confused. In the prior "whole" setup (the one you generated 
after my 15 steps, plus one workaround), was/is the basic boot menu at 
least "working" when you used the workaround for the buggy PATH 
directive when booting in UEFI mode? I mean:

 "PATH EFI/BOOT/SYSLINUX/EFI64/" 

in 

"target/EFI/BOOT/SYSLX64.CFG".

It is not perfect, but at least it should show the boot menu in UEFI 
mode, and not hang immediately.

Could you please confirm?


Regarding the "prompt.cfg" you are now trying to investigate (which is 
not the one in boot.img), the following is (potentially) the first in a 
series of simple, iterative, progressive tests and feedback. And no, 
I'm not going to just write the ending/working result, in particular 
when I don't know/understand the new goal.


If we don't know what is wrong/failing, then we need "basic" step by 
step testing (iterations) for troubleshooting.

Using 6.04~git20171011.af7e95c3+dfsg1-6 packages from Debian Unstable 
for all syslinux-related files.

target
 └── EFI
     └── BOOT
         ├── BOOTX64.EFI
         ├── LDLINUX.E64
         ├── libcom32.c32
         ├── libutil.c32
         ├── vesamenu.c32
         ├── pwd.c32
         ├── ls.c32
         ├── cat.c32
         └── SYSLX64.CFG

All in the same dir, we don't change WD, we don't mix it with BIOS, we 
don't need the crappy PATH directive.

###  EFI/BOOT/SYSLX64.CFG  start ###

# Note that there is no "splash.png" background

# This is a command
UI vesamenu.c32

# The DEFAULT should rather be a label, not a command
DEFAULT vesamenulabel

# If we have an active ("uncommented") UI directive,
# then the PROMPT directive makes no diff.
# This command is here anyway, in purpose.
PROMPT 1

# Let's try to clear the screen when we load the menu
MENU CLEAR

LABEL vesamenulabel
COM32 vesamenu.c32

LABEL pwdlabel
COM32 pwd.c32

LABEL lslabel
COM32 ls.c32

LABEL catlabel
COM32 cat.c32
APPEND /EFI/BOOT/SYSLX64.CFG

# To be tested from the boot prompt, using a different label
LABEL vesamenulabel2
COM32 vesamenu.c32
APPEND SYSLX64.CFG

###  EFI/BOOT/SYSLX64.CFG  end ###

The result might not be a nice, readable screen, but it should not hang 
nor give errors about vesamenu.c32.

Could you please confirm this (too)?

Could you also please try the "equivalent" (not exactly the same, but 
similar) to the above simple UEFI-only setup in a separate BIOS-only 
case? I hope by now you can see which small details are relevant in 
order to "translate" from one platform to the other.

Regards,
Ady.

PS: I am also hoping that the expectations are not to build a whole new 
set of cfg files with all-working features for D-I here in the Syslinux 
Mailing List (especially when developers upstream and downstream don't 
care). Debian has been dropping support for Syslinux for years (from 
installation/update scripts, themes and what not), and the same goes 
for most distros and for The Syslinux Project itself, and nobody wanted 
to "invest" the time when it was still relevant (with very few 
exceptions, too-few).