Syslinux - Jun 2003 - Suggestion for improving syslinux man page.

I would suggest putting this syslinux web page info near the top of the 
man page.
I was using debian, which has all the linux images being linux.bin.
So, to make my own boot disk, I thought I would just copy bzImage to the 
floppy as linux.bin. Big mistake, if one does that it will not work, and 
one gets output like: -
0400
AX:0208
BX:0200
CX:0002
DX:0000
etc.

Just renaming "linux.bin" to "linux" made it all work.
See below for what I suggest adding to the man page :-

{ Common problems }

     * Watch the name of your kernel

{ Watch the name of your kernel }

     The single most common user error is setting up a kernel 
configuration which uses one of the reserved extensions:

   none or other Linux kernel image
   .0            PXE bootstrap program (NBP) [PXELINUX only]
   .bin          "CD boot sector" [ISOLINUX only]
   .bs           Boot sector [SYSLINUX only]
   .bss          Boot sector, DOS superblock will be patched in 
[SYSLINUX only]
   .c32          COM32 image (32-bit COMBOOT)
   .cbt          COMBOOT image (not runnable from DOS)
   .com          COMBOOT image (runnable from DOS)
   .img          Disk image [ISOLINUX only]

     Especially the .0 extension bites a lot of people (calling your 
kernel "redhat-9.0", for example.) Please double-check this carefully.

     It is unfortunate that there isn't a standard extension used for 
Linux kernels, and that none of the commonly loaded data formats (except 
perhaps COM32) have reliable magic numbers. If you want to name your 
kernel images something that will avoid confusion, I suggest using the 
extension .zi (zImage/bzImage).

James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
> I would suggest putting this syslinux web page info near the top of the
> man page.
> I was using debian, which has all the linux images being linux.bin.
> So, to make my own boot disk, I thought I would just copy bzImage to the
> floppy as linux.bin. Big mistake, if one does that it will not work, and
> one gets output like: -
> 0400
> AX:0208
> BX:0200
> CX:0002
> DX:0000
> etc.
> 
> Just renaming "linux.bin" to "linux" made it all work.
> See below for what I suggest adding to the man page :-
> 

http://syslinux.zytor.com/errors.php

It's listed as "common problems".

	-hpa