Syslinux - Mar 2017 - "isolinux.bin missing or corrupt" when booting USB flash drive in old PC

> On 03/19/2017 04:03 PM, David Christensen wrote:
> > [    0.600883] ---[ end Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to
mount
> > root fs on unkonwn-block(0,0)
> 
> Similar kernel panic when booted on Intel DQ67SW i7-2600S.
> 
> 
> David
> 
 
 
That's because your syslinux.cfg is "wrong", but the behavior just
proves that SYSLINUX is indeed booting.

# ***syslinux.cfg***
DEFAULT mylabel
LABEL mylabel
LINUX vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.gz
# ******************

So the system is bootable, and the others (those old P4) will be too.
>From now on, it is about what additional "append" parameters you 
want/need or about configuring whatever Debian wants/needs on each 
system. That's for Debian (and its community) to support (hint: the cfg 
files in the ISO image should give you a first clue, and they can 
probably be used almost as-is).

Regards,
Ady.

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On 03/19/2017 08:30 PM, Ady Ady via Syslinux wrote:
> That's because your syslinux.cfg is "wrong", but the behavior
just
> proves that SYSLINUX is indeed booting.
>
> # ***syslinux.cfg***
> DEFAULT mylabel
> LABEL mylabel
> LINUX vmlinuz
> APPEND initrd=initrd.gz
> # ******************
The USB flash drive boots the Debian installer in the old PC!

> So the system is bootable, and the others (those old P4) will be too.
> From now on, it is about what additional "append" parameters you
> want/need or about configuring whatever Debian wants/needs on each
> system. That's for Debian (and its community) to support (hint: the cfg
> files in the ISO image should give you a first clue, and they can
> probably be used almost as-is).
There is no syslinux.cfg on debian-8.7.1-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso:

2017-03-19 22:39:42 dpchrist at jesse ~
$ find /media/dpchrist/Debian\ 8.7.1\ i386\ 1/ -name syslinux.cfg
<nothing>


Thanks, everyone, for your patience and assistance.  :-)


I will try to do an install later, and will report the result.


David

> On 03/19/2017 08:30 PM, Ady Ady via Syslinux wrote:
> > That's because your syslinux.cfg is "wrong", but the
behavior just
> > proves that SYSLINUX is indeed booting.
> >
> > # ***syslinux.cfg***
> > DEFAULT mylabel
> > LABEL mylabel
> > LINUX vmlinuz
> > APPEND initrd=initrd.gz
> > # ******************
> 
> The USB flash drive boots the Debian installer in the old PC!
> 
> 
> > So the system is bootable, and the others (those old P4) will be too.
> > From now on, it is about what additional "append" parameters
you
> > want/need or about configuring whatever Debian wants/needs on each
> > system. That's for Debian (and its community) to support (hint:
the cfg
> > files in the ISO image should give you a first clue, and they can
> > probably be used almost as-is).
> 
> There is no syslinux.cfg on debian-8.7.1-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso:
 
That's because most distros don't have an active package maintainer for 
Syslinux. Debian could decide to change the name of the "isolinux" 
directory to "syslinux" and "isolinux.cfg" to
"syslinux.cfg" in their
ISO images, and it would make most things easier (while ISOLINUX would 
still work as usual). Alternative solutions are availble too.

Instead, you have to do it yourself (or by auxiliary tools that do it 
for you). This is one of the steps that Martin included:

quote (wrapped by email width):
mv /media/X-install/syslinux/isolinux.cfg 
/media/X-install/syslinux/syslinux.cfg

Regards,
Ady.