Slax author's Blog (RSS)
22
October2012
Static extlinux
Several people reported that it's not easy for them to install Slax boot loader from within their existing Linux OS due to the fact they don't have extlinux installed (while the boot installer uses it). On some Linuxes, extlinux is not necessarily even a part of the syslinux package, making it hard for some users to even install it.
I'm happy I finally managed to compile extlinux statically against uclibc. It's just 110KB binary, doesn't depend on any system libraries whatsoever and runs fine on both 32bit and 64bit architectures, so I'm including it in the /slax/boot directory and will use this binary to install Slax to USB device. Suggested by Ady, thank you!
User comments
@Tomas
Off-topic question;
Started looking at your kernel .config and there a # of potential issues - mostly minor but not all;
- Leaving the CHIPOPTIONS-MSK in there is not a good idea because it serves no useful function and it will break a number of ssd controllers. (Like the vertex x0000F and a bunch of others.)
- Patched the drm / radeon ext_tmds_* for the bus because if you leave it in there then if someone loads a(ny) radeon driver and then unloads it (purposely or by accident) it will double-back on the bus and they will get a kernel panic.
- There is(was) a BUFSIZE_CHECK problem in 3.6 where, since the return value wasn't checked it would lock (time-out) the system, waiting 1 minute for stuff that will never come. (Especially an issue when copy2ram) Fixed in 3.6.4
- About 30+ other issues/fixes.(Most minor.)
Anyways, not here to bore you with the details but the actual question is this;
Do you have some idea/suggestion/preference regarding Kernel+driver patches/optimizations?
Is there/will you provide a venue for patches or do you prefer if one just sets up an entirely independent repo?
@Pocci:
yes, it supports FAT, EXT2/3/4, BTRFS, NTFS. And hopefully soon XFS.
@pizzar0:
If there are any patches needed for Linux kernel, then you should get them included in mainline (Linus' tree). I'm going to keep kernel up to date with the mainline as closely as possible. Latest stable is now 3.6.3, so next Slax will have 3.6.3 kernel or newer (whichever is available at the time of release). I'm not going to patch kernel in any significant way myself, I am in no position to decide which patches to apply and which don't.
I am trying to install slax on a mac computer. when I run bootinst.sh I get the following error:
./bootinst.sh: line 125: ./extlinux.x64: cannot execute binary file
Error installing boot loader.
The error appears in both the 64 and 32 versions
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Independance is good news.
Will the bootinst.sh script for Linux support USB devices with FAT32 and other filesystems?