[syslinux] 10 year old question

[Daryl Kuchay]

Still trying to get something of a recent operating system to work on the hardware. I apologize for adding to the mess in the thread last night. Point taken. I do have to agree with the idea of a forum though. Last time I used a mail list for actual support was many years ago. In fact this might be why it took me ten years to reach out. These serve as info pipelines these days. Get more than a few people contributing and it gets messy quick. On a forum I can do so much more with formatting and all others on the internet benefit from the information being publicly visible. Thus reducing the involvement from people working on the code. 

Was wrong on tinycore. They are not using pae, they just dont compile anything “experimental” in to kernel and most of my hardware that indeed is, needs to be * built in. On TC its not even there so I lost a day trying to make tiny core work. I’ve built over 30 kernels for this hardware. I cant get theirs to work. 

Thank you to Mr Cupp for suggesting Thinstation however the hardware profile iso I made (via documentation) loaded both vitualbox additions as well as VMware stuff AND firefox. That seems like an error for a iso to sniff hardware. I only have 256mb ram. 

Tazpuppy although interesting is not usable with pae kernel preloaded and my attempts to utilize vm to load that iso with build scripts leads me to an interface that does not work in vm. Clicks all take place in the upper left of each window that is open.  

So, for today I have to report that I am still tying to make a situation possible where I can report back to you what happens with the offered suggestions. I will have to build this myself through scripting so please allow for a few days for my ability to report back. 

I will refrain from jumping out of context on the mail list but this is a limitation. Again, I agree that a forum is the proper place for support. 



Daryl

> On May 14, 2020, at 12:04 PM, Ady via Syslinux <syslinux at syslinux.org> wrote:
> 
> Several comments...
> 
> 1. Readers / Subscribers might note that I am replying to the email thread, but 
> I'm not quoting any prior text; intentionally. Please carefully read the whole 
> email before acting on any particular aspect / topic / step.
> 
> 2. When reading something (a book, or source code, or whatever), I tend to go 
> "forward", usually from the start to the end - call me crazy :o. I don't know 
> anyone that reads a sentence from the last word towards the first one. Any 
> message board of any kind shows the messages from top to bottom, not the other 
> way around. In other words, to anyone participating in this mailing list, 
> please, _avoid_ top-posting!!! Really.
> 
> 3. Generally speaking, replies should be sent to the Syslinux mailing list's 
> email address (not to private email addresses). Unfortunately, there are 
> several reasons and circumstances that make this less intuitive than it should. 
> Yet, please pay attention.
> 
> 4. Regarding Unetbootin, LiLi, or whichever other tool that is being used in 
> order to initially boot whichever distro's ISO / installer, the version of 
> SYSLINUX and/or ISOLINUX that they use should not be relevant for the purpose 
> of installing a specific version of SYSLINUX as bootloader on the destination 
> device. To be clear, I don't mean that these tools have no influence at all, 
> but rather that I am suggesting to use the official binaries distributed by The 
> Syslinux Project - see the "Download" wiki page in the official Syslinux wiki. 
> In other words, install the OS in whichever way you can, and then replace the 
> bootloader with the desired version of Syslinux.
> 
> 5. After downloading the relevant official upstream distribution archives, go 
> back to the Syslinux wiki and search for the "Install" wiki page.
> 
> 6. The point is that I am suggesting for the OP to replace the version of 
> SYSLINUX that is being used as bootloader with whichever version is known to 
> work in this hardware, independently of the specific package that some Linux 
> distro is using. Beware: if using c32 modules, they should be from the same 
> version of the bootloader; e.g. installing version 3.86 by means of the 
> official upstream binaries / installers / commands shall imply that also the 
> corresponding c32 modules need to be copied to the relevant location, such as 
> "/boot/syslinux/*" for instance, if the c32 modules are in use (in 
> syslinux.cfg). Please be careful not to overwrite ldlinux.c32 when manually 
> copying c32 files (if it exists).
> 
> 7. In order to evaluate whether any specific version of SYSLINUX successfully 
> boots in this hardware, I would suggest temporarily renaming your 
> "syslinux.cfg" to something else. It doesn't matter that the next step (i.e. 
> booting your OS) would fail; the goal is still to check whether SYSLINUX was 
> successfully installed as bootloader and able to boot in this hardware. The 
> specific "successful" behavior depends on the version of SYSLINUX (v.3.85+ 
> should show at least a "boot:" prompt); the "failure" behavior should be some 
> kind of hang / freeze, even before attempting to load any kernel. Once SYSLINUX 
> works correctly, rename back the cfg file, review the configuration and reboot.
> 
> 8. There are many other / additional / possible troubleshooting steps. If the 
> above is not enough, please carefully read the wiki. Without having access to 
> the specific hardware, there are too many variables to troubleshoot in one 
> email. Narrowing down the problem would help, and clear info posted in an 
> orderly manner would too (if the wiki is not enough).
> 
> Regards,
> Ady.
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