Syslinux - Oct 2008 - COMBOOT/COM32 shell and DIR library functions

For several years now, I've been using Syslinux/Isolinux to load boot
systems and love it.  At times, I've messed up making a config file or
forgotten the name of a file on the CD (or USB flash drive) and didn't
want to take the time to load the CD into another machine or boot a
DOS or Linux OS to search.  The ability to browse the CD/USB drive
would prove beneficial in these circumstances.

Has anyone considered building a COMBOOT/COM32 application that
implements a simple shell (cd, ls/dir, help, and some sort of run/load
command to boot, maybe cat/echo (already implemented in other apps)),
just an ls/dir application or the opendir()/readdir()/closedir() C
library functions?  I realize that these would only be useful for
SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX/EXTLINUX and not PXELINUX as TFTP does not allow
listing of directory contents.  I also realize that the implementation
of these 3 functions would require 3 more functions each for each file
system type (ie opendir_fat(), opendir_iso() and opendir_ext() called
by opendir() after determining the FS type).  These would benefit from
simple functions to determine FS type number and if the FS type allows
DIR operations (very quick to write as syslinux_derivative_info
provides the information).

Gene Cumm wrote:
> For several years now, I've been using Syslinux/Isolinux to load boot
> systems and love it.  At times, I've messed up making a config file or
> forgotten the name of a file on the CD (or USB flash drive) and didn't
> want to take the time to load the CD into another machine or boot a
> DOS or Linux OS to search.  The ability to browse the CD/USB drive
> would prove beneficial in these circumstances.
> 
> Has anyone considered building a COMBOOT/COM32 application that
> implements a simple shell (cd, ls/dir, help, and some sort of run/load
> command to boot, maybe cat/echo (already implemented in other apps)),
> just an ls/dir application or the opendir()/readdir()/closedir() C
> library functions?  I realize that these would only be useful for
> SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX/EXTLINUX and not PXELINUX as TFTP does not allow
> listing of directory contents.  I also realize that the implementation
> of these 3 functions would require 3 more functions each for each file
> system type (ie opendir_fat(), opendir_iso() and opendir_ext() called
> by opendir() after determining the FS type).  These would benefit from
> simple functions to determine FS type number and if the FS type allows
> DIR operations (very quick to write as syslinux_derivative_info
> provides the information).
> 
Hello,

It's something I have considered, and probably will get around to doing 
at some point.  It is a relatively major change and relatively low 
priority, however, so I don't know *when* that might happen.

	-hpa