[syslinux] isohybrid has 2 variants

Thomas Schmitt
2014-06-21T21:32:44Z

Hi,

> Not being compatible with EFI/GPT is already a problem for the Perl
> variant.

The relation of both is:

isohybrid.in/.pl is being left behind.
  http://git.kernel.org/cgit/boot/syslinux/syslinux.git/tree/utils/Makefile
has:
  SCRIPT_TARGETS	+= isohybrid.pl  # about to be obsoleted

isohybrid.c replaces it feature-wise and adds new features.
Only those new features contain the bugs, afaik.


> Add the lack of documentation about the differences,

... and the fact that
  http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Doc/isolinux
still describes the perl script, whereas
  http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/ISOLINUX
says nothing about isohybrid.

Probably one should consolidate the articles about ISOLINUX.
A chapter about isohybrid could tell about all three ways to
create an isohybrid ISO: isohybrid.c, isohybrid.pl, xorriso.


> As you might have read already in prior emails, the Perl variant
> might be helpful under some circumstances, e.g. if we consider the OS
> itself a dependency.

It would need a maintainer, then.
A good way to enter this job would to learn about the new features
in isohybrid.c, fix the bugs (with my help), and to then port
the features to isohybrid.in.


> FWIW, I would not want to "declare" it [isohybrid.in/.pl] frozen,

It effectively is. And the shape of isohybrid.c is not much better.


>  I don't know whether those
> "isohybrid.exe" are "untrusted", but they are not an
official part of
> The Syslinux Project (read as "not distributed in official upstream
> archives").

Neither perl nor .exe are in my knowledge base. But maybe some
skilled user of MS-Windows can propose a way to create a
widely usable .exe, which must be able to do >= 43 bit byte
addressing in data files.


> Again, The Syslinux Project needs more development-power-time and
> patches are welcome.

If i fix isohybrid.c then it will stick to me.
After a while it would become the same as the libisofs/xorriso
implementation. (I would read MBRs from the SYSLINUX installation,
would drop the dependency on libuuid, ... perky changes ...)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas