1 EXTLINUX is a new syslinux derivative, which boots from a Linux
4 It works the same way as SYSLINUX, with a few slight modifications.
6 1. The installer is run on a *mounted* filesystem. Run the extlinux
7 installer on the directory in which you want extlinux installed:
11 NOTE: this doesn't have to be the root directory of a filesystem.
12 If /boot is a filesystem, you can do:
14 mkdir -p /boot/extlinux
15 extlinux /boot/extlinux
17 ... to create a subdirectory and install extlinux in it.
20 2. The configuration file is called "extlinux.conf", and is expected
21 to be found in the same directory as extlinux is installed in.
24 3. Pathnames can be absolute or relative; if absolute (with a leading
25 slash), they are relative to the root of the filesystem on which
26 extlinux is installed (/boot in the example above), if relative,
27 they are relative to the extlinux directory.
29 extlinux supports subdirectories, but the total path length is
30 limited to 255 characters.
33 4. EXTLINUX currently doesn't support symlinks it does, however,
34 support hard links. This will be fixed in a future version.
38 Note that EXTLINUX installs in the filesystem partition like a
39 well-behaved bootloader :) Thus, it needs a master boot record in the
40 partition table; the mbr.bin shipped with SYSLINUX should work well.
41 To install it just do:
43 cat mbr.bin > /dev/XXX
45 ... where /dev/XXX is the appropriate master device, e.g. /dev/hda,
46 and make sure the correct partition in set active.
49 If you have multiple disks in a software RAID configuration, the
50 preferred way to boot is:
52 - Create a separate RAID-1 partition for /boot. Note that the Linux
53 RAID-1 driver can span as many disks as you wish.
55 - Install the MBR on *each disk*, and mark the RAID-1 partition
58 - Run "extlinux /boot" to install extlinux. This will install it on
59 all the drives in the RAID-1 set, which means you can boot any
60 combination of drives in any order.
64 It is not required to re-run the extlinux installer after installing
65 new kernels. If you are using ext3 journalling, however, it might be
66 desirable to do so, since running the extlinux installer will flush
67 the log. Otherwise a dirty shutdown could cause some of the new
68 kernel image to still be in the log. This is a general problem for
69 boot loaders on journalling filesystems; it is not specific to
70 extlinux. The "sync" command does not flush the log on the ext3
74 The SYSLINUX series boot loaders support chain loading other operating
75 systems via a separate module, chain.c32 (located in
76 com32/modules/chain.c32). To use it, specify a LABEL in the
77 configuration file with KERNEL chain.c32 and
78 APPEND [hd|fd]<number> [<partition>]
82 # Windows CE/ME/NT, a very dense operating system.
83 # Second partition (2) on the first hard disk (hd0);
84 # Linux would *typically* call this /dev/hda2 or /dev/sda2.