SYSLINUX is a boot loader for the Linux operating system, which operates on an MS-DOS or Windows FAT file systems. SYSLINUX was developed aiming to simplify the first time installation of Linux and for creation of rescue and other special purpose to boot disks.

SYSLINUX, when properly set up, is also used to eliminate the requirement for distribution of raw diskette images for booting floppies. A SYSLINUX floppy can be manipulated using MS-DOS or any other OS that can access an MS-DOS file system.

Don’t confuse SYSLINUX as a general-purpose boot loader. It can only boot Linux from a FAT file system and not from any other file system like ext2 etc. However, SYSLINUX has proved itself quite useful for some special purpose applications.

SYSLINUX is easy to configure. Incorporating a file called SYSLINUX.CFG in the root directory you can change the default configuration of SYSLINUX. The file is a text file in UNIX or DOS format containing a number of options such as, DEFAULT kernel options, APPEND options, LABEL label, LOCALBOOT type, IMPLICIT flag_val, TIMEOUT, SERIAL port and much more.

SYSLINUX supports large kernel (bzimage format) and boot-time-loaded ramdisk (initrd). SYSLINUX has an advanced extension API and contains two optional menu systems. It also includes MEMDISK, a tool for booting legacy operating systems from non-traditional media like PXE or CD-ROM.