Re: Adoption of syslinux

["Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net>]

Hi,

good to know that the SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX packages are maintained again.

Please consider to also adopt bug #857597 from package debian-cd:

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

which is actually an old bug in the ISOLINUX isohybrid MBR.
It hits old BIOS which announces to be able only of C/H/S addressing
and not of LBA addressing.
(I.e. the fix now races against the natural demise of such machines.)

Fixed upstream in march 2017 by
  http://git.zytor.com/syslinux/syslinux.git/commit/?id=32c09027423f61c305e2423e52f5f69ecad8e2c0
and further hardened by
  http://git.zytor.com/syslinux/syslinux.git/commit/?id=8739e2ff9ba3f92652c8df846924fd00e1ce2753

It looks like debian-cd and debian-live both still use the buggy MBR:

  $ dd if=debian-8.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso bs=1 count=432 of=8.1.0.mbr
  ...
  $ dd if=debian-9.1.0-amd64-netinst.iso bs=1 count=432 of=9.1.0.mbr
  ...
  $ diff 8.1.0.mbr 9.1.0.mbr
  $

(debian-8.1.0-*.iso was made before the bug was diagnosed and fixed.)

My copy of debian-live-testing-amd64-kde.iso bears
  Creation Time: 2017061205495400
Its MBR code differs from netinst only by the first 32 bytes which
have not been overwritten by an Apple Partition Map block0. The beef
is in the higher bytes, where i see no difference.
(I see heavy difference when comparing to the fixed isohdpfx.bin.170324.)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas