[syslinux] "isolinux.bin missing or corrupt" when booting USB flash drive in old PC

Thomas Schmitt
Mon, 20 Mar 2017 08:14:57 -0000

Hi,

David Christensen wrote:
> The USB flash drive boots the Debian installer in the old PC!

Congrats.


> There is no syslinux.cfg on debian-8.7.1-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso:

The configuration is named /isolinux/isolinux.cfg.
Looks like it is surrounded by a little empire of .cfg files:

  /isolinux/adgtk.cfg
  /isolinux/adtxt.cfg
  /isolinux/exithelp.cfg
  /isolinux/gtk.cfg
  /isolinux/isolinux.cfg
  /isolinux/menu.cfg
  /isolinux/prompt.cfg
  /isolinux/rqgtk.cfg
  /isolinux/rqtxt.cfg
  /isolinux/spkgtk.cfg
  /isolinux/stdmenu.cfg
  /isolinux/txt.cfg

The "append" statements are in several of the subordinate files.
E.g. in /isolinux/txt.cfg:
   append desktop=xfce vga=788 initrd=/install.386/initrd.gz --- quiet


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

Martin and me will probably ask you to put our experimental bytes onto
your USB stick and to report what Martin's upcomming test MBR tells
when you attempt to boot it on the old computers.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas