I have been struggling to find a way to convert a ZIP file to a bootable ISO, but I haven’t been able to make the ISO bootable. I have tried using tools like mkisofs, xorrisofs, and genisoimage, but whenever I boot from the ISO, I get messages indicating that vmlinuz-0_0_0_1 cannot be found.
Just for your information, when I burn the USB stick using syslinux it works as expected
Follow below:
ISO folder
╭─fpsouza@VI-5CD3227B7S ~/download/Debian12/ISO
╰─$ ls -ltr
total 3579788
drwxr-xr-x 1 fpsouza fpsouza 4096 Nov 4 2021 utils
-rwxr-xr-x 1 fpsouza fpsouza 1023 Nov 4 2021 system_config.xml.template
-rw-r--r-- 1 fpsouza fpsouza 11558 Nov 4 2021 system_config.xml.example
-rw-r--r-- 1 fpsouza fpsouza 1763 Nov 4 2021 static_config.xml.example
-rwxr-xr-x 1 fpsouza fpsouza 8205 Nov 4 2021 install_rootfs.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 fpsouza fpsouza 785 Nov 4 2021 dynamic_config.xml.example
-rw-r--r-- 1 fpsouza fpsouza 11545 Nov 7 2022 system_config.xml
-rw-r--r-- 1 fpsouza fpsouza 8169408 May 3 14:36 vmlinuz-0_0_0_1
-rw-r--r-- 1 fpsouza fpsouza 30465604 May 16 14:00 initrd.img-0_0_0_1
-rw-r--r-- 1 fpsouza fpsouza 2726297600 May 16 14:00 rootfs.ext3-0_0_0_1
drwxr-xr-x 1 fpsouza fpsouza 4096 May 16 14:00 initial_install
-rw-r--r-- 1 fpsouza fpsouza 273 May 16 14:00 MANIFEST-0_0_0_1
-rwxr--r-- 1 fpsouza fpsouza 900717729 May 16 14:02 VI_IPC_0_0_0_1.zip
drwxr-xr-x 1 fpsouza fpsouza 4096 May 21 16:51 memdisk
drwxr-xr-x 1 fpsouza fpsouza 4096 May 21 21:14 isolinux
╭─fpsouza@VI-5CD3227B7S ~/download/Debian12/ISO
╰─$ cat isolinux/isolinux.cfg
prompt 0
timeout 10
default linux
say Booting Linux Platform
label linux
kernel vmlinuz-0_0_0_1
append initrd=initrd.img-0_0_0_1 root=LABEL=VIMB_INSTAL loop=rootfs.ext3-0_0_0_1 loopfstype=ext3
╭─fpsouza@VI-5CD3227B7S ~/download/Debian12/ISO
╰─$
The command lines I tried to use to make the ISO bootable are:
xorrisofs
xorrisofs -o output.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -J -r -V "VIMB_INSTAL" ISO
mkisofs
mkisofs -o output.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table ISO
genisoimage
genisoimage -v -J -r -D -l -R -V VIMB_INSTAL -iso-level 3 -no-emul-boot -o output.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat ISO
My test environments are my local laptop using the qemu-system-x86_64 tool and VMware.
╭─fpsouza@VI-5CD3227B7S ~/download/Debian12
╰─$ file VI_IPC_0_0_0_1.iso
VI_IPC_0_0_0_1.iso: ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem data 'VIMB_INSTAL' (bootable)
╭─fpsouza@VI-5CD3227B7S ~/download/Debian12
╰─$
qemu-system-x86_64 -boot d -cdrom VI_IPC_0_0_0_1.iso -m 128
