| 1 | For creators of Linux distributions: |
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| 2 | |
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| 3 | Syslinux is a notoriously hard program to debug, since it runs outside |
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| 4 | of any operating system, and has a tendency to expose BIOS and |
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| 5 | hardware bugs on various systems. Therefore, I would appreciate if |
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| 6 | you would resist the temptation of recompiling the Syslinux bootloader |
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| 7 | itself (ldlinux.asm) if at all possible. If you do that, I will have |
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| 8 | to refer any bug reports I receive back to the respective distributor. |
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| 9 | |
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| 10 | However, I have no such concerns about recompiling the installer |
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| 11 | programs, and in fact, with both libc 5 and libc 6 in common use in |
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| 12 | the Linux world today I understand if you wish to relink the |
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| 13 | Linux-based installer against your system version of libc. Therefore |
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| 14 | a special makefile targets "make installer" has been included with the |
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| 15 | Syslinux distribution, starting with version 1.42. |
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| 16 | |
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| 17 | To rebuild the installer programs *only*, starting from a freshly |
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| 18 | untarred distribution copy of Syslinux, do: |
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| 19 | |
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| 20 | make clean |
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| 21 | make installer |
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| 22 | |
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| 23 | If you want to remove all intermediate files, including the ones |
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| 24 | obtained from assembling ldlinux.asm and which are included in the |
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| 25 | distribution, do "make spotless". |
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| 26 | |
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| 27 | I appreciate your assistance in this matter. |
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| 28 | |
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| 29 | H. Peter Anvin |
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