Bug #8144

Ship syslinux.cfg instead of isolinux.cfg in the ISO

Added by anonym 2014-10-16 09:19:29 . Updated 2017-06-29 18:48:59 .

Status:
Duplicate
Priority:
Low
Assignee:
Category:
Target version:
Start date:
2014-10-16
Due date:
% Done:

0%

Feature Branch:
Type of work:
Code
Blueprint:

Starter:
Affected tool:
Deliverable for:

Description

Reported on IRC:

(18:13:25) Ady2: anonym: I've been trying to bring attention to a boot issue in EFI in TAILS.
(18:13:34) Ady2: In the ISO images, TAILS is using "/EFI/BOOT/isolinux.cfg". This is incorrect (there is no "isolinux" in UEFI). It should be "EFI/BOOT/syslinux.cfg".
(18:13:55) Ady2: For example, to solve the problem described in https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-testers/2014-October/000075.html the user needs to copy "/EFI/BOOT/isolinux.cfg" to "/EFI/BOOT/syslinux.cfg".
(18:14:04) Ady2: There are more potential improvements (or better ones), but copying "/EFI/BOOT/isolinux.cfg" to "/EFI/BOOT/syslinux.cfg" is the less stressful / minimal interference one.

Subtasks

Related issues

Is duplicate of Tails - Feature #12439: Unify the syslinux directory & config file name between ISO and installed USB stick Rejected 2017-04-12

History

#1 Updated by intrigeri 2014-10-17 02:11:00

> (18:13:55) Ady2: For example, to solve the problem described in
> https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-testers/2014-October/000075.html the user
> needs to copy “/EFI/BOOT/isolinux.cfg” to “/EFI/BOOT/syslinux.cfg”.

I’m confused by this report. A Tails installed with Tails Installer (that is, the only kind of Tails where we pretend to support UEFI at all), there is /EFI/BOOT/syslinux.cfg. So, it looks like someone is trying to get UEFI working on a device installed in a non-UEFI-supported way.

#2 Updated by intrigeri 2014-10-17 02:11:21

  • Assignee set to anonym
  • QA Check set to Info Needed

#3 Updated by intrigeri 2014-10-17 04:18:38

  • Subject changed from /EFI/BOOT/isolinux.cfg should be renamed syslinux.cfg to Ship syslinux.cfg instead of isolinux.cfg in the ISO
  • Status changed from New to Confirmed
  • Assignee deleted (anonym)
  • Priority changed from Elevated to Low
  • Target version deleted (Tails_1.2.1)
  • QA Check deleted (Info Needed)

So, according to Ady2 on IRC, for BIOS boot, /syslinux/syslinux.cfg should work. So, we could probably use syslinux instead of isolinux paths both for BIOS (DVD, USB) and UEFI (USB) boot, straight in the ISO, instead of renaming stuff in Tails Installer and in Universal USB Installer. Presumably, it would improve support for some hardware, and it would generally make our bootloader-related stuff cleaner.

Next steps:

  1. try renaming isolinux->syslinux at ISO build time
  2. test booting the resulting ISO from DVD
  3. test booting a USB stick with that ISO installed in all supported ways

Ady2 also says “there are other Debian-based ISO images already doing this (e.g. Clonezilla and GpartedLive are using ‘/syslinux/syslinux.cfg’ and ‘/syslinux/isolinux.cfg’”.

#4 Updated by Anonymous 2017-06-29 14:44:10

  • Assignee set to intrigeri
  • QA Check set to Info Needed

intrigeri has some new info on this, from the syslinux mailing list it seems.

#5 Updated by intrigeri 2017-06-29 18:48:16

  • is duplicate of Feature #12439: Unify the syslinux directory & config file name between ISO and installed USB stick added

#6 Updated by intrigeri 2017-06-29 18:48:59

  • Status changed from Confirmed to Duplicate
  • Assignee deleted (intrigeri)
  • QA Check deleted (Info Needed)

Actually I’ve reported this already… by creating a duplicate ticket, that’s much more detailed than this one, so closing this one.