Re: Some of the parameters used in my genisoimage command don't produce a bootable ISO image

I've removed the "APPEND file=/cdrom/preseed/preseed.cfg auto=true" parameter(s) from the live menu entry,even because it makes no sense to keep it. The live system does not imply that the user can choose some parameters. It is not an installer at all,all parameters have been decided from the beginning. But I've kept it on the graphical debian installer. In Fact it is already used on the original ISO,as you can see below :

menuentry "Graphical Debian Installer" {

linux /d-i/gtk/vmlinuz append video=vesa:ywrap,mtrr vga=788 "${loopback}"
initrd /d-i/gtk/initrd.gz

}

As you can see some parameters have been already appended by default by the debian developers. So I assume that different parameters than those can be appended. So,it becomes like this :

menuentry "Debian Custom Graphical Debian Installer" {
linux /d-i/gtk/vmlinuz APPEND file=/cdrom/preseed/preseed.cfg auto=true video=vesa:ywrap,mtrr vga=788 "${loopback}"
initrd /d-i/gtk/initrd.gz

Does it make more sense ?

Il giorno gio 13 ott 2022 alle ore 10:15 Thomas Schmitt <scdbackup@gmx.net> ha scritto:

Hi,

Mario Marietto wrote:
> What I haven't understood well is if, in your opinion, this "code" is well
> written or not :
>
> menuentry "Debian GNU/Linux Custom (kernel 5.10.0-18-amd64)" {
> linux /d-i/gtk/vmlinuz APPEND file=/cdrom/preseed/preseed.cfg auto=true initrd=/live/initrd.gz boot=live components locales=en_US.UTF-8 quiet splash "${loopback}"
> initrd /d-i/gtk/initrd.gz

I doubt that "APPEND" and "initrd=/live/initrd.gz" are appropriate.

As already stated, "APPEND" is a SYSLINUX/ISOLINUX configuration directive
https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=Config#APPEND
But you use it as argument to GRUB2's "linux" command, from where i
expect it to become a Linux kernel argument which is not a defined
kernel option.

"initrd=/live/initrd.gz" is a Linux kernel option:
https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/initrd.html
This (quite old) document promises that Linux will try to unpack the
cpio image into the RAM disk. But there is no file /live/initrd.gz in the
ISO.

"initrd" in an own line and without "=" is the GRUB2 command to specify
one or more initial ramdisks:
https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/grub.html#initrd

Neither "APPEND" nor an "initrd=" kernel option are to see in the original
GRUB2 configuration of debian-live-11.5.0-amd64-xfce.iso .
So i assume they sneaked in while you were tinkering around with various
inspirations from the internet and came to a ISOLINUX configuration
example.
I advise to try whether your GRUB2 configuration works as well if you
omit them.

Have a nice day :)

Thomas