[Updated 8/27/02]

SYSLINUX is a bootloader for Linux using MS-DOS floppies. It is good to learn how to create your own SYSLINUX recovery diskettes for disaster recovery. [On a related topic, check out SuperRescue CD. SuperRescue is an iso image you can burn to a CD. The CD is bootable and has a suite of tools for recovery.]

Here is the homepage for SYSLINUX:
http://syslinux.zytor.com/
Browse around to get an idea of what kinds of things you can do with SYSLINUX, as well as instructions.

You can get the source here:
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/

To compile the source, you need nasm. You can get nasm here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/nasm

Here is a cool tutorial page on nasm (as well as another source for the software):
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/1295/index.html

We just extracted the source /usr/local/src, and ran configure and make. We had some difficulties with make install, but could copy the files manually.

Many distributions include SYSLINUX. After nasm is installed and available in your path, you can then run make and make install in the root of the syslinux source tree.

To make a bootable Linux diskette, first format a floppy. We like to use dosemu cuz mtools (mformat) doesn’t always format correctly, but you can use anything you like. 🙂 Then, type syslinux /dev/fd0. You may want to use the -s option for finicky BIOSs.

[root@u-1 u-1]# syslinux /dev/fd0
[root@u-1 u-1]# mdir
Volume in drive A has no label
Volume Serial Number is 1B37-13DB
Directory for A:/
LDLINUX  SYS      6900 09-04-2001  12:12
1 file                6 900 bytes
1 450 496 bytes free
[root@u-1 u-1]#

You can now put a kernel on the floppy (default name is LINUX) and configure for disaster recovery. For our Red Hat 7.3 system, syslinux.cfg looks like:

label linux
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img root=/dev/hda5

This is about as simple as you can get. You might also want to look at the mkbootdisk command.