Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

Ledti · 2011-02-13 03:09:51

kazuo wrote:

I'm getting a strange problem with syslinux (I'm using the pack from testing and pyther install script).
90% of time, the boot sequence get frozen at the syslinux copyright screen (the one before the menu screen). I can leave it all day and it don't continue.
But if I smash (as 'hit it as fast I can') the enter key before the copyright screen comes up, its boot ok (of course the menu screen pass in a flash with all the enter key smashing).
This can be related to syslinux packaging and/or pyther script? Or you think that this is an upstream problem?

Yeah, I've had/have that problem too. You don't happen to be using an Acer netbook/laptop? I know there's a fix for a Acer bios related problem in Syslinux git, but I'm not sure if that's the issue.

Edit: It's not related to Pyther's script. It had happened to me previously as well.

Last edited by Ledti (2011-02-13 03:11:57)

kazuo · 2011-02-13 03:18:33

Ledti wrote:

Yeah, I've had/have that problem too. You don't happen to be using an Acer netbook/laptop? I know there's a fix for a Acer bios related problem in Syslinux git, but I'm not sure if that's the issue.
Edit: It's not related to Pyther's script. It had happened to me previously as well.

No, I have a HP laptop (a dv3500). But I'm gonna take a try with a git build, thanks for the info.

Dieter@be · 2011-02-13 11:48:50

does https://gist.github.com/772138 always point to the latest revision? or do I always need to click on the top link in the revisions list? not sure how the gist revision thingie works

Last edited by Dieter@be (2011-02-13 11:49:37)

skodabenz · 2011-02-13 13:21:41

Dieter@be wrote:

does https://gist.github.com/772138 always point to the latest revision? or do I always need to click on the top link in the revisions list? not sure how the gist revision thingy works

Yes. Gist is a pastebin with git backend. You can do 'git clone git://gist.github.com/772138.git' to get the version history. Gist provides the owner of the gist with a (separate) private url to push his/her changes to the script. It is simply a git repo with only the script as its sole content and a pastebin like frontend web gui.

Simply opening the link points to the latest version of the script. This is the one i used for archboot grub2 efi patch - https://gist.github.com/750302 .

Last edited by skodabenz (2011-02-13 13:30:09)

c00kiemon5ter · 2011-02-20 04:24:16

alright, the script worked for me too.
I had to get menu.c32 and syslinux.cfg into /boot/syslinux/
I edited the cfg, run the script -i -a -m and all good.

this is a x86_64 machine
/boot is on /dev/sda1 ext2 primary
all other partitions are under lvm and ext4
works great

Dieter@be · 2011-02-20 15:43:47

using d2971d

16:41:50 dieter@ws ~ master ? sudo ./syslinux.sh -i -a -m  
Error: /boot/syslinux is empty!
Is /boot mounted?
16:42:04 dieter@ws ~ master ? df -h | grep boot                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   1 ↵
/dev/sda1              99M   54M   41M  57% /boot
16:42:10 dieter@ws ~ master ? ls -alh /boot
total 48M
drwxr-xr-x  5 root root 1.0K Jan 31 22:51 .
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4.0K Feb 16 18:34 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 1.0K Feb 16 22:07 grub
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 9.6M Aug 20  2010 kernel2.6.34-fallback.img
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3.3M Aug 29 17:01 kernel2.6.35.img
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  10M Jan 31 22:52 kernel26-fallback.img
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3.4M Jan 31 22:51 kernel26.img
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 8.8M Oct  5 19:30 kernel26rt-fallback.img
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 3.2M Oct  5 19:28 kernel26rt.img
drwx------  2 root root  12K Nov  5  2008 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x  6 root root 1.0K Nov  9  2008 .svn
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.2M Jan 29 20:42 System.map26
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 930K Aug  7  2010 System.map26rt
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 2.0M Jan 29 20:42 vmlinuz26
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.9M Aug 15  2010 vmlinuz2.6.34
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.9M Aug 29 17:01 vmlinuz2.6.35
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 1.7M Aug  7  2010 vmlinuz26rt
16:42:13 dieter@ws ~ master ? pacman -Qs syslinux
local/syslinux 4.03-1
    Collection of flexible boot loaders that boot from FAT, ext2/3/4 and btrfs filesystems, from CDs and via PXE

Am i supposed to mkdir /boot/syslinux myself first, or something? and put the config in there before running the script? that seems a bit counter-intuitive

Last edited by Dieter@be (2011-02-20 15:45:23)

pyther · 2011-02-20 15:46:27

Am i supposed to mkdir /boot/syslinux myself first, or something? and put the config in there before running the script? that seems a bit counter-intuitive

Exactly... the pkg in testing automatically does that for you when you place the config in /boot/syslinux

MindTooth · 2011-02-20 16:12:52

Nice work

Love to see SYSLINUX support for Arch Linux.

Dieter@be · 2011-02-20 16:19:29

pyther wrote:

Am i supposed to mkdir /boot/syslinux myself first, or something? and put the config in there before running the script? that seems a bit counter-intuitive
Exactly... the pkg in testing automatically does that for you when you place the config in /boot/syslinux

If I manually put the config in /boot/syslinux, then what exactly does the new package do?

Anyway, other then the weird requirement of the config needing to be installed before the bootloader can be installed, it seems to work fine.
my remarks:
1) installation executes very quickly
2) the syslinux menu (at least the one in the default config you linked to) is butt ugly
3) the default keymap seems to be qwerty. changing this is not very convenient:

17:15:06 dieter@ws ~ master ? man keytab-lilo
No manual entry for keytab-lilo
17:15:08 dieter@ws ~ master ? keytab-lilo --help                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 16 ↵
cannot open file us.kmap
Keymap is empty
17:15:11 dieter@ws ~ master ? keytab-lilo                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         1 ↵
usage: /usr/bin/keytab-lilo [ -p old_code=new_code ] ...
                            [path]default_layout[.kmap] ] [path]kbd_layout[.kmap]

(obviously, you don't need to worry about 2/3, it's me who needs to look at the documentation. although 3 could be reported upstream)

I ran -i -a -m,
my system is /dev/sda1 /boot ext3, sda2 is dm_crypt with lvm and on top of that, the regular filesystems

Last edited by Dieter@be (2011-02-20 16:21:09)

mhertz · 2011-02-21 09:13:22

pyther wrote:

[...] Over the last few weeks I have been working on Syslinux support for the installer.

Sorry for maybe off-topic, but does this mean that the new installer ISOs will install extlinux instead of grub-legacy, or if it's possible to choose from the two then which will be the default? (I'm using AIF fully unattended installs personally, and the example configs in AIF-git which I base my own from, still only lists "grub options" to define...)

I have tried searching through old ML archive posts with extlinux+default etc, but gave up after some time as there where so many posts and the relevant posts where not that new, so I didn't knew what had changed meanwhile...

Thanks in advance!

c00kiemon5ter · 2011-02-21 09:15:43

afaik The new installer will ask you to chose one bootloader. If you dont it pick one, it wont let you continue until you do. So it's your choice, there's no default that way.

check this
http://mailman.archlinux.org/pipermail/ … 01483.html

Last edited by c00kiemon5ter (2011-02-21 09:16:40)

mhertz · 2011-02-21 09:28:51

Thanks alot mate! Very much appreciated!

Arch Linux

#26 2011-02-13 03:09:51

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

#27 2011-02-13 03:18:33

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

#28 2011-02-13 11:48:50

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

#29 2011-02-13 13:21:41

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

#30 2011-02-20 04:24:16

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

#31 2011-02-20 15:43:47

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

#32 2011-02-20 15:46:27

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

#33 2011-02-20 16:12:52

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

#34 2011-02-20 16:19:29

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

#35 2011-02-21 09:13:22

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

#36 2011-02-21 09:15:43

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

#37 2011-02-21 09:28:51

Re: Syslinux Installer / Update Script - Testers Needed

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