Annotation of /trunk/mkinitrd-magellan/isolinux/isolinux.txt
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Thu Aug 19 09:50:43 2010 UTC (14 years, 1 month ago) by niro
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Thu Aug 19 09:50:43 2010 UTC (14 years, 1 month ago) by niro
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File size: 5979 byte(s)
-updated to isolinux-3.86
1 | niro | 1133 | ISOLINUX |
2 | |||
3 | A bootloader for Linux using ISO 9660/El Torito CD-ROMs | ||
4 | |||
5 | Copyright 1994-2008 H. Peter Anvin - All Rights Reserved | ||
6 | |||
7 | This program is provided under the terms of the GNU General Public | ||
8 | License, version 2 or, at your option, any later version. There is no | ||
9 | warranty, neither expressed nor implied, to the function of this | ||
10 | program. Please see the included file COPYING for details. | ||
11 | |||
12 | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | ||
13 | |||
14 | ISOLINUX is a boot loader for Linux/i386 that operates off ISO 9660/El | ||
15 | Torito CD-ROMs in "no emulation" mode. This avoids the need to create | ||
16 | an "emulation disk image" with limited space (for "floppy emulation") | ||
17 | or compatibility problems (for "hard disk emulation".) | ||
18 | |||
19 | This documentation isn't here yet, but here is enough that you should | ||
20 | be able to test it out: | ||
21 | |||
22 | Make sure you have a recent enough version of mkisofs. I recommend | ||
23 | mkisofs 1.13 (distributed with cdrecord 1.9), but 1.12 might work as | ||
24 | well (not tested.) | ||
25 | |||
26 | To create an image, create a directory called "isolinux" (or, if you | ||
27 | prefer, "boot/isolinux") underneath the root directory of your ISO | ||
28 | image master file tree. Copy isolinux.bin, a config file called | ||
29 | "isolinux.cfg" (see syslinux.txt for details on the configuration | ||
30 | file), and all necessary files (kernels, initrd, display files, etc.) | ||
31 | into this directory, then use the following command to create your ISO | ||
32 | image (add additional options as appropriate, such as -J or -R): | ||
33 | |||
34 | mkisofs -o <isoimage> \ | ||
35 | -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat \ | ||
36 | -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \ | ||
37 | <root-of-iso-tree> | ||
38 | |||
39 | (If you named the directory boot/isolinux that should of course be | ||
40 | -b boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin -c boot/isolinux/boot.cat.) | ||
41 | |||
42 | ISOLINUX resolves pathnames the following way: | ||
43 | |||
44 | - A pathname consists of names separated by slashes, Unix-style. | ||
45 | - A leading / means it searches from the root directory; otherwise the | ||
46 | search is from the isolinux directory (think of this as the "current | ||
47 | directory".) | ||
48 | - . and .. in pathname searches are not supported. | ||
49 | - The maximum length of any pathname is 255 characters. | ||
50 | |||
51 | Note that ISOLINUX only uses the "plain" ISO 9660 filenames, i.e. it | ||
52 | does not support Rock Ridge or Joliet filenames. It can still be used | ||
53 | on a disk which uses Rock Ridge and/or Joliet extensions, of course. | ||
54 | Under Linux, you can verify the plain filenames by mounting with the | ||
55 | "-o norock,nojoliet" option to the mount command. Note, however, that | ||
56 | ISOLINUX does support "long" (level 2) ISO 9660 plain filenames, so if | ||
57 | compatibility with short-names-only operating systems like MS-DOS is | ||
58 | not an issue, you can use the "-l" or "-iso-level 2" option to mkisofs | ||
59 | to generate long (up to 31 characters) plain filenames. | ||
60 | |||
61 | ISOLINUX does not support discontiguous files, interleaved mode, or | ||
62 | logical block and sector sizes other than 2048. This should normally | ||
63 | not be a problem. | ||
64 | |||
65 | ISOLINUX is by default built in two versions, one version with extra | ||
66 | debugging messages enabled. If you are having problems with ISOLINUX, | ||
67 | I would greatly appreciate if you could try out the debugging version | ||
68 | (isolinux-debug.bin) and let me know what it reports. The debugging | ||
69 | version does not include hybrid mode support (see below.) | ||
70 | |||
71 | |||
72 | ++++ NOTE ON THE CONFIG FILE DIRECTORY ++++ | ||
73 | |||
74 | ISOLINUX will search for the config file directory in the order | ||
75 | /boot/isolinux, /isolinux, /. The first directory that exists is | ||
76 | used, even if it contains no files. Therefore, please make sure that | ||
77 | these directories don't exist if you don't want ISOLINUX to use them. | ||
78 | |||
79 | |||
80 | ++++ HYBRID CD-ROM/HARD DISK MODE ++++ | ||
81 | |||
82 | Starting in version 3.72, ISOLINUX supports a "hybrid mode" which can | ||
83 | be booted from either CD-ROM or from a device which BIOS considers a | ||
84 | hard disk or ZIP disk, e.g. a USB key or similar. | ||
85 | |||
86 | To enable this mode, the .iso image should be postprocessed with the | ||
87 | "isohybrid" script from the utils directory: | ||
88 | |||
89 | isohybrid filename.iso | ||
90 | |||
91 | This script creates the necessary additional information to be able to | ||
92 | boot in hybrid mode. It also pads out the image to an even multiple | ||
93 | of 1 MB. | ||
94 | |||
95 | This image can then be copied using any raw disk writing tool (on Unix | ||
96 | systems, typically "dd" or "cat") to a USB disk, or written to a | ||
97 | CD-ROM using standard CD burning tools. | ||
98 | |||
99 | The ISO 9660 filesystem is encapsulated in a partition (which starts | ||
100 | at offset zero, which may confuse some systems.) This makes it | ||
101 | possible for the operating system, once booted, to use the remainder | ||
102 | of the device for persistent storage by creating a second partition. | ||
103 | |||
104 | |||
105 | ++++ BOOTING DOS (OR OTHER SIMILAR OPERATING SYSTEMS) ++++ | ||
106 | |||
107 | WARNING: This feature depends on BIOS functionality which is | ||
108 | apparently broken in a very large number of BIOSes. Therefore, this | ||
109 | may not work on any particular system. No workaround is possible; if | ||
110 | you find that it doesn't work please complain to your vendor and | ||
111 | indicate that "BIOS INT 13h AX=4C00h fails." | ||
112 | |||
113 | To boot DOS, or other real-mode operating systems (protected-mode | ||
114 | operating systems may or may not work correctly), using ISOLINUX, you | ||
115 | need to prepare a disk image (usually a floppy image, but a hard disk | ||
116 | image can be used on *most* systems) with the relevant operating | ||
117 | system. This file should be included on the CD-ROM in the /isolinux | ||
118 | directory, and have a .img extension. The ".img" extension does not | ||
119 | have to be specified on the command line, but has to be explicitly | ||
120 | specified if used in a "kernel" statement in isolinux.cfg. | ||
121 | |||
122 | For a floppy image, the size of the image should be exactly one of the | ||
123 | following: | ||
124 | |||
125 | 1,228,800 bytes - For a 1200K floppy image | ||
126 | 1,474,560 bytes - For a 1440K floppy image | ||
127 | 2,949,120 bytes - For a 2880K floppy image | ||
128 | |||
129 | Any other size is assumed to be a hard disk image. In order to work | ||
130 | on as many systems as possible, a hard disk image should have exactly | ||
131 | one partition, marked active, that covers the entire size of the disk | ||
132 | image file. Even so, hard disk images are not supported on all | ||
133 | BIOSes. |