Syslinux - Jan 2014 - After USB boot problems on Gigabyte GA-M55Plus-S3G

On 01/19/2014 03:47 PM, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
> 
> Doesn't the Syslinux project provide (hopefully strong) specific
> reccomendations, to its user base, for how these things should best
> be done, you know, in order to insure maximal interoperability?
> 
We try (see our wiki), but those recommendations can only come from mass
testing across many, many systems -- which we have to rely on our
userbase for as we have no such resources.

	-hpa

In message <52DCC023.7000100 at zytor.com>, 
"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:
>On 01/19/2014 03:47 PM, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
>> 
>> Doesn't the Syslinux project provide (hopefully strong) specific
>> reccomendations, to its user base, for how these things should best
>> be done, you know, in order to insure maximal interoperability?
>> 
>
>We try (see our wiki), but those recommendations can only come from mass
>testing across many, many systems -- which we have to rely on our
>userbase for as we have no such resources.
I understand.

As you see, I have tried to be helpful, and have done much testing...
all the testing that was requested of me.

Now, will you please make whatever adjustments you feel might be
appropriate, either to the Syslinux wiki, or to the code or both,
and then, far more importantly as far as I am concerned, will you
reach out personally to the developers of Clonezilla, UBCD, and
OpenELEC, and provide them with advice, suggestions, and, if
appropriate, new (Syslinux) code which will help them to all to
avoid such end-user problems as I have experienced in the future?
Will you be kind enough to commit to doing that (please)?


Regards,
rfg

Hi,

Ronald F. Guilmette:
> > Doesn't the Syslinux project provide (hopefully strong) specific
> > reccomendations, [...]
hpa:
> We try (see our wiki),
The general wiki
  http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/SYSLINUX#Creating_a_Bootable_Disk
says
 "In order to create a bootable disk using SYSLINUX, prepare a normal
  MS-DOS formatted disk."
which would not have helped me to avoid Ronald's problem.
I would have considered any existing FAT as "normal".

Maybe one should add a link to a new section
  "Possible pitfalls of MS-DOS disk partitioning and formatting"
in
  http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Common_Problems

It would give an overview or links about "partitioning",
"filesystem",
"FAT", "LBA", and "Cylinder/Head/Sector".
Then it would advise Ady's layout of LBA driven FAT32 with
conservative partitioning.


I would volunteer as half-educated author of such a section,
but possibly i am already too much spoiled by detail knowledge.
Does anybody know comprehensive existing user documentation about
the topic, to which the wiki could link ?
(Wikipedia is too detailed and scattered to be of help during a
 computer crisis. See
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table
)


Maybe one should also swap the positions of the links on the
left edge of the general wiki:
  "Help"
  http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Help:Contents
and
  "Common Problems"
  http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Common_Problems 
because most users would seek help with boot problems, rather
than help with editing the wiki.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

Op 2014-01-20 om 00:04 schreef Ronald F. Guilmette:
> In message <52DCC023.7000100 at zytor.com>, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> >On 01/19/2014 03:47 PM, Ronald F. Guilmette wrote:
> >> 
> >> Doesn't the Syslinux project provide (hopefully strong)
specific
> >> reccomendations, to its user base, for how these things should
best
> >> be done, you know, in order to insure maximal interoperability?
> >> 
> >
> >We try (see our wiki), but those recommendations can only come from
mass
> >testing across many, many systems -- which we have to rely on our
> >userbase for as we have no such resources.
> 
> I understand.
> 
> As you see, I have tried to be helpful, and have done much testing...
> all the testing that was requested of me.
> 
> Now, will you please make whatever adjustments you feel might be
> appropriate, either to the Syslinux wiki, or to the code or both,
> and then, far more importantly as far as I am concerned, will you
> reach out personally to the developers of Clonezilla, UBCD, and
> OpenELEC, and provide them with advice, suggestions, and, if
> appropriate, new (Syslinux) code which will help them to all to
> avoid such end-user problems as I have experienced in the future?
> Will you be kind enough to commit to doing that (please)?
> 
Because I didn't follow this completely,
I could be wrong that there is no code change needed.

And about the documenting part. This text

   A wiki  is usually a web application which allows people to add,
   modify, or delete content in a collaboration with others. Text is
   usually written using a simplified markup language or a rich-text
   editor. While a wiki is a type of content management system, it differs
   from a blog or most other such systems in that the content is created
   without any defined owner or leader, and wikis have little implicit
   structure, allowing structure to emerge according to the needs of
   the users

is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

The Syslinux wiki is at
http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/The_Syslinux_Project


It is been a while ago that I got a syslinux wiki account.
So I don't know how hard it is to get one these days.
My message is that getting a syslinux wiki account is possible.
And if the account creation process is broken, please tell.


Something else:
I agree with the majority that some one else should do it
and my kudos go to the minority that actually do.



Groeten
Geert Stappers
-- 
Leven en laten leven
------------- volgend deel ------------
Een niet-tekst bijlage is gescrubt...
Naam: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Grootte: 198 bytes
Omschrijving: Digital signature
URL :
<http://www.zytor.com/pipermail/syslinux/attachments/20140120/d92d2a0d/attachment.sig>

> Hi,
> 
> Ronald F. Guilmette:
> > > Doesn't the Syslinux project provide (hopefully strong)
specific
> > > reccomendations, [...]
> 
> hpa:
> > We try (see our wiki),
> 
> The general wiki
>   http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/SYSLINUX#Creating_a_Bootable_Disk
> says
>  "In order to create a bootable disk using SYSLINUX, prepare a normal
>   MS-DOS formatted disk."
> which would not have helped me to avoid Ronald's problem.
> I would have considered any existing FAT as "normal".
> 
> Maybe one should add a link to a new section
>   "Possible pitfalls of MS-DOS disk partitioning and formatting"
> in
>   http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Common_Problems
> 
> It would give an overview or links about "partitioning",
"filesystem",
> "FAT", "LBA", and "Cylinder/Head/Sector".
> Then it would advise Ady's layout of LBA driven FAT32 with
> conservative partitioning.
> 
> 
> I would volunteer as half-educated author of such a section,
> but possibly i am already too much spoiled by detail knowledge.
> Does anybody know comprehensive existing user documentation about
> the topic, to which the wiki could link ?
> (Wikipedia is too detailed and scattered to be of help during a
>  computer crisis. See
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table
> )
> 
> 
> Maybe one should also swap the positions of the links on the
> left edge of the general wiki:
>   "Help"
>   http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Help:Contents
> and
>   "Common Problems"
>   http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Common_Problems 
> because most users would seek help with boot problems, rather
> than help with editing the wiki.
> 
> 
> Have a nice day :)
> 
> Thomas
 
In a certain way, the problem is never-ending.

For instance, the (U)EFI standard is about a decade (or more) in the 
making, and it is not stable / consistent enough yet. Another one: 
for years the whole "booting with USB drives" was, from the point of 
view of the final user, almost an "art" of trial an error between CHS 
geometry, USB-HDD, USB-FDD, USB-ZIP,... A USB drive would work in one 
BIOS version, and after a BIOS update it would not; or it would work 
in one system but not in the other.

By the time we finally have a more-or-less "commonly-used" 
"well-known" "most-frequently-working" quasi de-facto
so-called
"standard values", we start again, this time with UEFI.

The whole "booting business" is bigger than one specific bootloader. 
Saying that there are more than just a couple of articles about 
booting would be laughable. There are entire websites and forums 
dedicated just to booting.

IMHO, there is more-than-enough to do about The Syslinux Project 
itself, including improving documentation for versions 4.xx and 6.xx.

Distros and other similar "live" projects are constantly trying to 
improve bootability, as much as their resources allow, because they 
want their users to be able to use their software.

Regarding contacting / improving other projects mentioned in this 
email thread, there is already work in progress, at least about part 
of them. I should say this is an ongoing effort, almost always.

BTW, in retrospect, the issues in this whole email thread were less 
related to formatting a filesystem, and more about using adequate 
_matching_ values between BIOS, partition table and VBR.

Regards,
Ady.

In message <22113645514706764120 at scdbackup.webframe.org>, 
"Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup at gmx.net> wrote:
>I would volunteer as half-educated author of such a section,
>but possibly i am already too much spoiled by detail knowledge.
If you write it, I will volunteer to review it.

Despite all of the back and forth, I am still largely ignorant of all
these matters, so if I can understand what you've written, then I think
that you will have succeeded at making things plain enough for everyone
who matters.


Regards,
rfg