Syslinux.cfg: why are kernel name descriptors used by default instead of UUIDs?

General system Newbie
1

I recently perused the Arch wiki for fstab configuration, and the article advises against using kernel name descriptors.

I later opened my syslinux.cfg file (which has been untouched by me) to troubleshoot a different problem and noticed that the APPEND root parameter is using kernel name descriptors for each menu entry.

My question is: why are kernel name descriptors used by default in syslinux.cfg and should I manually change these entries to use disk or partition UUIDs? Am I wrong to assume the same drawbacks apply to kernel name descriptors in syslinux as they do in fstab?

DEFAULT arch
PROMPT 0        # Set to 1 if you always want to display the boot: prompt
TIMEOUT 50


# Menu Configuration
# Either menu.c32 or vesamenu32.c32 must be copied to /boot/syslinux
UI menu.c32
#UI vesamenu.c32

# Refer to http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Doc/menu
MENU TITLE Arch Linux
#MENU BACKGROUND splash.png
MENU COLOR border       30;44   #40ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR title        1;36;44 #9033ccff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR sel          7;37;40 #e0ffffff #20ffffff all
MENU COLOR unsel        37;44   #50ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR help         37;40   #c0ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout_msg  37;40   #80ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR timeout      1;37;40 #c0ffffff #00000000 std
MENU COLOR msg07        37;40   #90ffffff #a0000000 std
MENU COLOR tabmsg       31;40   #30ffffff #00000000 std


LABEL arch
    MENU LABEL Arch Linux
    LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
    APPEND root=/dev/sda3 rw
    INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img

LABEL archfallback
    MENU LABEL Arch Linux Fallback
    LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
    APPEND root=/dev/sda3 rw
    INITRD ../initramfs-linux-fallback.img


LABEL hdt
        MENU LABEL HDT (Hardware Detection Tool)
        COM32 hdt.c32

LABEL reboot
        MENU LABEL Reboot
        COM32 reboot.c32

LABEL poweroff
        MENU LABEL Poweroff
        COM32 poweroff.c32
2

Seems to be what is recommended in ArchWiki:

The kernel parameters are set by using the APPEND directive in syslinux.cfg: for each LABEL entry, a maximum of one APPEND line is accepted (i.e. spanning multiple lines is not valid).

It is recommended to make the following changes for the “fallback” entry as well.

In the simplest case, the value of the root parameter needs to be replaced; see Persistent block device naming for supported methods.

APPEND root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx rw

Change root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx to point to the correct root volume.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Syslinux#Kernel_parameters

I guess if you have only one disk, this shouldn’t be that relevant.

3

I do have multiple disks, so changing to UUIDs makes sense. Thank you for the reply.

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4

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