# PXELINUX 5.1 vs PXELINUX6.0

## Rossy65

I"m debugging using my Gentoo machine as a TFTP/PXE server to boot diskless clients.

I have a REAL diskless client, and a VirtualBox emulator (which I use for testing).

I'm using the very nice WIki Page at: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Diskless_nodes

And generally everything is likely working... But the PXELINUX5.10 rev is CRASHING my VirtualBox test client.

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/13048

This bug was submitted against VIrtualBox, but essentially there is something WRONG with PXELINUX5.10 which is FIXED in PXELINUX6.0.

So... it appears that the emerge version of syslinux I have is not new enough...

```
SpaceHeaterOne etc # emerge --search syslinux

  

[ Results for search key : syslinux ]

Searching...

*  sys-boot/syslinux

      Latest version available: 5.10

      Latest version installed: 5.10

      Size of files: 5,192 KiB

      Homepage:      http://www.syslinux.org/

      Description:   SYSLINUX, PXELINUX, ISOLINUX, EXTLINUX and MEMDISK bootloaders

      License:       GPL-2

[ Applications found : 1 ]

SpaceHeaterOne etc # 
```

So now I'm trying to figure out how to emerge a newer flavor of syslinux.

(Perhaps there is an overlay?)

[Moderator edit: changed [quote] tags to [code] tags to preserve output layout. -Hu]

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## Rossy65

I did some searching.

One can cd to root and do a:

```
find . -name "syslinux*" -print

```

To get a list of the ebuilds:

You can do a

```
equery y syslinux
```

And the system will show you what versions are available...

Why the system defaults to an older version... I haven't quite determined.

BUT

Somehow, I missed the trick of using "=" to specify a specific revision.

```
emerge --ask =sys-boot/syslinux-6.0.3
```

Did the trick.

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## Hu

Portage picks the newest version that satisfies keyword requirements, license acceptance, package mask requirements, and various other things.  =sys-boot/syslinux-6.03 (note, no second dot) is currently ~testing on the architectures it supports at all, which is probably why Portage did not pick it by default.  As you found, specifying the version will force Portage to use that version or print a reason why it refuses to do so.  Knowing this reason is often useful for deciding whether to override its decision, and knowing how to override the decision if you choose to do so.  Modern Portage can often generate an override for you if you ask for one, once you force it to pick the version you want.

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