Live System fails to boot on PC with legacy BIOS (1.7.101~ubuntu15.10.1)

[ivano]

Hello Kendek,

I created a Live System of of my laptop which is running the Ubuntu 15.10 Desktop .
The final image is about 4.8G bytes, so I wrote this image on a 8G byte pendrive.

The pendrive fails to boot on PC with a legacy BIOS, but start on PC with EFI BIOS.

I got the following message:
     SYSLINUX 6.03 EDD 20150813 Copyright ....
     Boot error

Do you have any tips ?

Best regards.

[Kendek (nemh)]

I have reproduced this problem and I will look for the cause.

[Kendek (nemh)]

It seems that this is a syslinux bug in the Ubuntu 15.10 repository. The
syslinux -i /dev/sdXN
command is work under Ubuntu 15.04, but not if you try with 15.10. Maybe because the newly Canonical modifications (the version 6.03 is the same):
http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/s/syslinux/syslinux_6.03+dfsg-8ubuntu2/changelog
or just because the GCC 5.
I reported this bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/syslinux/+bug/1511988

[ivano (ivano-coltellacci)]

yes, I guess you got the root cause. A similar issue was reported and CONFIRMED some day ago.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/syslinux/+bug/1507002

thank you for you work :D

[Kendek (nemh)]

Yes, but unfortunately I see nothing activity. So maybe sometime in the future this problem will be fixed (or not). I cannot fix this problem in the Systemback, so we must wait.

[ivano (ivano-coltellacci)]

Hi Kendek,

I confirm that this issue is related with the syslinux package coming with
Unbuntu 15.10 (a.k.a. syslinux_6.03+dfsg-8ubuntu2)

While waiting for the syslinux fix from maintainers, I can propose a patch that installs,
into an alternative directory tree, the syslinux package coming with Unbuntu 15.04
(a.k.a. syslinux_6.03+dfsg-5ubuntu1). The patch creates symbolic links in order to fool SYSTEMBACK,
so it will use this alternative.

Doing that I successfully created a live system which boots on a legacy BIOS PC.

The attached file contains 3 shell scripts.

1/ wget_syslinux_debs.sh
------------------------
This is a simple script that retrieves the syslinux_6.03+dfsg-5ubuntu1 packages from the launchpad
repository, namely :

       a. isolinux_6.03+dfsg-5ubuntu1_all.deb
       b. syslinux_6.03+dfsg-5ubuntu1_amd64.deb
       c. syslinux-common_6.03+dfsg-5ubuntu1_all.deb
       d. syslinux-utils_6.03+dfsg-5ubuntu1_amd64.deb

2/ patch_current_syslinux.sh
----------------------------
This script does the following:

       a. Unpacks the debian packages in /opt/syslinux
       b. Just in case, it bacupks the original syslinux files in /tmp/backup_syslinux-orig.tgz
       c. Renames /usr/bin/<syslinux-files> as /usr/bin/<syslinux-files>.orig, then
          it creates symbolic links versus their respectives /opt/syslinux/usr/bin/<syslinux-files>
       d. Rename /usr/lib/<syslinux-directories> as /usr/lib/<syslinux-directories>.orig, then
          it creates symbolic links versus their respectives /opt/syslinux/usr/lib/<syslinux-directories>

At this point we can execute SYSTEMBACK, to create a live system, and
then to write it to the pendrive.

3/ restore_original_syslinux.sh
-------------------------------
This script does the following:

       a. Restores the originals /usr/bin/<syslinux-files> from the /usr/bin/<syslinux-files>.orig
       b. Restores the originals /usr/lib/<syslinux-directories> from /usr/bin/<syslinux-directories>.orig
       c. Remove the alternative directory tree in /opt/syslinux

NOTE 1 : the scripts 2 and 3 have to be execued with root privileges (sudo)
NOTE 2 : the /tmp/backup_syslinux-orig.tgz is not removed and can be used if something went wrong.

Have fun.

Ivano.