Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Thu, 2 Mar 2006, sindi keesan wrote:

> Can you explain in simple terms where/how to get syslinux and install it
> to use as a boot manager (boot to DOS or linux)?  Will it do SCSI boot?
> We are unable to boot to a DOS scsi disk in three computers with AMIBIOS
> set to boot from SCSI first.  We can boot to SCSI linux drive with loadlin
> and David's scsi 2.4.31 kernel.

Take a look here: http://syslinux.zytor.com/faq.php#harddrive .  I never 
tried doing this, so I can't add anything beyond the directions they give 
there.  It was quite simple to install syslinux to a floppy, and they say 
the procedure is essentially the same for installing to HD.  The hard part 
for me was figuring out the syntax for the syslinux.conf file: it's not 
spelled out clearly how to arrange this file in any of the literature I 
consulted.  I ended up using the trial-and-error method to get a working 
config file.  Be aware that syslinux suffers from the 1024 cylinder 
limitation.  I'm not sure what this means specifically: e.g., let's say 
your DOS partition is the first partition, but your Linux partition starts 
beyond the 1024 cylinder limit (after ca. 1GB).  Your BL kernel and 
ramdisk reside on the DOS partition.  Couldn't you still boot Linux from 
that first DOS partition?  By the time control is turned over to the 
kernel, the 1024 cylinder limit is no longer a factor.  I'm wondering if, 
in practical terms, this doesn't mean that you will be unable to direct 
syslinux to boot a kernel that resides on a Linux partition that starts 
beyond the 1024 cylinder limit.  I can only speculate, having never tried 
it.  I don't see anything there about scsi.

> Did your laptop have a DOS mouse driver installed?

I don't think so.  The floppy was just a barebones FreeDOS boot floppy.  I 
had to put an autoexec.bat and config.sys on it myself.

James

> On Wed, 1 Mar 2006, James Miller wrote:
>
> > Another possible resolution for Xvesa startup problems owing to DOS config
> > files that I've run across lately is to use syslinux.  I was fiddling with
> > a laptop on which Xvesa would not start recently when booting from DOS
> > (FreeDOS boot floppy), despite the fact that no memory management was
> > being used.  I finally decided to put syslinux on a floppy and tried
> > booting from it: Xvesa then started just fine.  It is possible to boot
> > even a DOS hard drive partition using syslinux.  It's not recommended, but
> > it apparently does work (I didn't try it, but the syslinux site seemed to
> > indicate it could work).  Maybe booting the system using syslinux is the
> > way to go to get around these DOS/Xvesa conflicts.  A boot menu could be
> > configured that would allow booting into either DOS or BL.
> >
> > James