(2006-08-06) rescue-bootcd

extra/syslinux-3.09/isolinux.doc

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+                               ISOLINUX
+
+       A bootloader for Linux using ISO 9660/El Torito CD-ROMs
+
+		Copyright (C) 1994-2003 H. Peter Anvin
+
+This program is provided under the terms of the GNU General Public
+License, version 2 or, at your option, any later version.  There is no
+warranty, neither expressed nor implied, to the function of this
+program.  Please see the included file COPYING for details.
+
+----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+ISOLINUX is a boot loader for Linux/i386 that operates off ISO 9660/El
+Torito CD-ROMs in "no emulation" mode.  This avoids the need to create
+an "emulation disk image" with limited space (for "floppy emulation")
+or compatibility problems (for "hard disk emulation".)
+
+This documentation isn't here yet, but here is enough that you should
+be able to test it out:
+
+Make sure you have a recent enough version of mkisofs.  I recommend
+mkisofs 1.13 (distributed with cdrecord 1.9), but 1.12 might work as
+well (not tested.)
+
+To create an image, create a directory called "isolinux" (or, if you
+prefer, "boot/isolinux") underneath the root directory of your ISO
+image master file tree.  Copy isolinux.bin, a config file called
+"isolinux.cfg" (see syslinux.doc for details on the configuration
+file), and all necessary files (kernels, initrd, display files, etc.)
+into this directory, then use the following command to create your ISO
+image (add additional options as appropriate, such as -J or -R):
+
+	mkisofs -o <isoimage> \
+		-b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat \
+		-no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
+		<root-of-iso-tree>
+
+(If you named the directory boot/isolinux that should of course be
+-b boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin -c boot/isolinux/boot.cat.)
+
+ISOLINUX resolves pathnames the following way:
+
+- A pathname consists of names separated by slashes, Unix-style.
+- A leading / means it searches from the root directory; otherwise the
+  search is from the isolinux directory (think of this as the "current
+  directory".)
+- . and .. in pathname searches are not supported.
+- The maximum length of any pathname is 255 characters.
+
+Note that ISOLINUX only uses the "plain" ISO 9660 filenames, i.e. it
+does not support Rock Ridge or Joliet filenames.  It can still be used
+on a disk which uses Rock Ridge and/or Joliet extensions, of course.
+Under Linux, you can verify the plain filenames by mounting with the
+"-o norock,nojoliet" option to the mount command.  Note, however, that
+ISOLINUX does support "long" (level 2) ISO 9660 plain filenames, so if
+compatibility with short-names-only operating systems like MS-DOS is
+not an issue, you can use the "-l" or "-iso-level 2" option to mkisofs
+to generate long (up to 31 characters) plain filenames.
+
+ISOLINUX does not support discontiguous files, interleaved mode, or
+logical block and sector sizes other than 2048.  This should normally
+not be a problem.
+
+ISOLINUX is by default built in two versions, one version with extra
+debugging messages enabled.  If you are having problems with ISOLINUX,
+I would greatly appreciate if you could try out the debugging version
+(isolinux-debug.bin) and let me know what it reports.
+
+YOU MAY WANT TO CONSIDER USING THE DEBUGGING VERSION BY DEFAULT.
+
+
+      ++++ NOTE ON THE CONFIG FILE DIRECTORY ++++
+
+ISOLINUX will search for the config file directory in the order
+/boot/isolinux, /isolinux, /.  The first directory that exists is
+used, even if it contains no files.  Therefore, please make sure that
+these directories don't exist if you don't want ISOLINUX to use them.
+
+
+      ++++ BOOTING DOS (OR OTHER SIMILAR OPERATING SYSTEMS) ++++
+
+WARNING: This feature depends on BIOS functionality which is
+apparently broken in a very large number of BIOSes.  Therefore, this
+may not work on any particular system.  No workaround is possible; if
+you find that it doesn't work please complain to your vendor and
+indicate that "BIOS INT 13h AX=4C00h fails."
+
+To boot DOS, or other real-mode operating systems (protected-mode
+operating systems may or may not work correctly), using ISOLINUX, you
+need to prepare a disk image (usually a floppy image, but a hard disk
+image can be used on *most* systems) with the relevant operating
+system.  This file should be included on the CD-ROM in the /isolinux
+directory, and have a .img extension.  The ".img" extension does not
+have to be specified on the command line, but has to be explicitly
+specified if used in a "kernel" statement in isolinux.cfg.
+
+For a floppy image, the size of the image should be exactly one of the
+following:
+
+	1,228,800 bytes		- For a 1200K floppy image
+	1,474,560 bytes		- For a 1440K floppy image
+	2,949,120 bytes		- For a 2880K floppy image
+
+Any other size is assumed to be a hard disk image.  In order to work
+on as many systems as possible, a hard disk image should have exactly
+one partition, marked active, that covers the entire size of the disk
+image file.  Even so, hard disk images are not supported on all
+BIOSes.
+
+