[syslinux] Old Syslinux version 1.40

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Kevin Grant wrote:
> it is
> just booting a linux 2.0.x kernel and some init scripts, right? :D

I would think so.


> Those
> files pointing to /cdrom will probably present their own challenges in due
> course,

After googling with due nostalgia for SysV init customs i looked into the
initrd for a candidate which would establish /cdrom.

After

  mount CobaltRaQ_initrd.img /mnt/ext

i see in file

  /mnt/ext/etc/rc.d/rc.cdrom

these lines

  # This script searches for a CD-ROM on the known Linux CD devices.
  # If one is found, it is mounted under $MOUNTPOINT.
  ...
  MOUNTPOINT="/cdrom"

plus some really entertaining ideas how a CD device file could be named.


If i was not deeply unqualified for the job, i would propose to create a
filesystem in a partition of the USB stick. Then i would create directory
./isolinux in its root directory. I'd copy the files from mounted FAT image
/mnt/iso/boot/eltorito.img into ./isolinux of the new filesystem.

Then i'd learn how to install SYSLINUX to the USB stick so that it boots to
  /isolinux/SYSLINUX.CFG
and whether this configuration needs modernatization to work with current
SYSLINUX. (Maybe a lowercase file name, at least ?)

I would copy the ISO image flatly to another partition of the USB stick
so that it can be mounted by that partition's device path.

I'd mount /isolinux/INITRD.IMG and disable its ./etc/rc.d/rc.cdrom by
taking away the x-permissions, as is reversely suggested in the file's
comments.
I'd use it as a template to develop a script
  ./etc/rc.d/rc.usb_stick_iso
which has x-permissions and shall look for the partition with the ISO.

I'd search for the timestamp (exploiting my ISO 9660 byte level knowledge)
because the volume Id is heavily non-unique "CDROM", the default of mkisofs.

  # Loop over possible partition_dev paths

    x=`dd if="$partition_dev" bs=1 skip=33581 count=16 2>/dev/null`
    if test "$x" = 2000091116290500
    then
      # mount this partition as /cdrom and be done
    fi

  # end loop


> obviously will be well beyond the scope of Syslinux at that point.

I think the part where i imagine to boot the old configuration by a
contemporary SYSLINUX would be again on topic here.

This is the full SYSLINUX.CFG content from the floppy image:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
default vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img ramdisk_size=6144 load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw root=/dev/ram0
append initrd=initrd.img ramdisk_size=6144 load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw root=/dev/ram0
prompt 1
timeout 6000
display message.txt
F1 f1.txt
F2 f2.txt
F3 f3.txt
F4 f4.txt
F5 f5.txt
F6 f6.txt
F7 f7.txt
label linux
  kernel vmlinuz
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Have a nice day :)

Thomas