[syslinux] Getting classic BIOS and UEFI boot on the same disk?

Erik Rull erik.rull at rdsoftware.de
Fri Aug 30 10:15:16 PDT 2019


Hello Greg,

thanks a lot - I will try out your script next week.
I jut went through the script - there is a line containing:
bls1 include

I would carefully assume that this line is only valid when patching syslinux,
correct? What will happen if this is read by a non-patched syslinux? Will it
cause errors or will it simply be ignored?

Best regards,

Erik


Gregory Bartholomew wrote:
> I just created something very similar for one of my own projects. I have a disk
> image that you can "dd" onto a hard drive or USB drive and a bash script
> demonstrating how it was done here:
> 
> https://www.syslinux.org/archives/2019-July/026476.html
> 
> You don't actually need the patch for the dual BIOS/UEFI support. The patch in
> the above link is just to enable the reading of config "snippits" from a
> "entries" directory. Feel free to try out the provided disk image to see if it
> meets your needs and reverse-engineer the bash script to suit your needs.
> 
> 
> On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 1:34 PM William R. Somsky via Syslinux
> <syslinux at syslinux.org <mailto:syslinux at syslinux.org>> wrote:
> 
> 
>     I'm not sure if it is useful, but with the advent of UEFI only machines,
>     we've run into a similar problem w/ out custom CentOS 7 USB installation
>     keys.
> 
>     Basically, we create a gpt device w/ a single FAT16 partition (this
>     would be your /boot partition for a full installation) containing an
>     EFI/BOOT/ directory with the syslinux-efi files and a SYSLINUX/
>     directory with the syslinux-bios files.
> 
>     Would further info on this be helpful?
> 
>     - WRSomsky
> 
> 
>     On Wed, Aug 21, 2019 at 12:57:05PM +0200, Erik Rull via Syslinux wrote:
>     > Hi all,
>     >
>     > We're using the classic boot BIOS syslinux successfully for many years, but
>     > meanwhile it's getting harder to buy hardware the still supports this boot
>     > mode.
>     > The option for us would be syslinux EFI boot.
>     > To avoid too many changes we would like to generate an image for our different
>     > hardware parts that supports both - classic BIOS boot and (U)EFI boot.
>     > This would allow us to leave the BIOS in whatever state it is and the system
>     > will simply boot.
>     >
>     > [[...]]
> 
>     -- 
>     Dr. William R. Somsky                                      somsky at uw.edu
>     <mailto:somsky at uw.edu>
>     Department of Physics, Box 351560                   B217 Phys-Astro Bldg
>     Univ. of Washington, Seattle WA 98195-1560                  206-616-2954
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