Repository navigation
Consider EOL for syslinux #321
Description
syslinux upstream has mostly vanished. While hpa seems to still be around, very little to no development was done on syslinux upstream since 2014. Nevertheless the world moves on and problems with unmaintained code arise.
We should at least consider what this means for us. Debian might consider dropping syslinux from d-i in a future release.
Open topics:
- PXE boot support with grub, assuming we still need non-UEFI PXE boot
- ?
Activity
mika commentedon Apr 30, 2025
Thanks for raising this :)
JFTR, depending on actual outcome: grml/grml2usb#59 includes a change regarding "Drop support for installing grub as bootloader" which we might consider iff we're not abandoning syslinux. :)
It might be worth a try to drop syslinux and see how well it behaves for dd, grml2usb,...and booting with serial console, on BIOS vs (U)EFI systems as well as virtual media ISO on OOB / remote console.
mika commentedon Feb 26, 2026
FTR, this is ongoing work in #459 + #483
zeha commentedon Jul 1, 2026
We still need a solution for netboot!
grub: use $prefix instead of hardcoding /boot/grub to support PXE boot
GRUB: support custom themes + bring configuration closer to grml-live…
GRUB: support custom themes + bring configuration closer to grml-live…
GRUB: support custom themes + bring configuration closer to grml-live…
mika commentedon Jul 12, 2026
FTR: with grml-live v0.57.0 + the changes for grml-terminalserver in grml/grml-terminalserver#27, PXE boot with GRUB works for me. (SecureBoot might need further work yet, trying to clarify this, but this isn't a show stopper for us for now.)
zeha commentedon Sep 3, 2026
We still ship pxelinux in the netboot images. Should we continue or stop doing that?
mika commentedon Sep 3, 2026
At least with grml-terminalserver we stop doing that as of grml/grml-terminalserver#27.
So I'd say yes, let's follow this also from within grml-live's
scripts/generate_netboot_package.sh, unless someone comes up with a use case for this?GRMLBASE: drop syslinux/pxelinux