Chapter 2. Booting Linux
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Chapter 2. Booting Linux

Table of Contents

2.1. Overview
2.2. Understanding Runlevels
2.2.1. INIT Controls Runlevels
2.3. Services and Runtime Control Scripts
2.3.1. Selecting Services per Runlevel
2.3.2. Shutting Down the System
2.3.3. Runtime Editors
2.4. The joys of inittab
2.5. LILO and GRUB
2.5.1. Installing LILO
2.5.2. Installing GRUB
2.5.3. Bootloader Options
2.5.4. Passing init parameters
2.5.5. Parsing Kernel Parameters
2.6. From boot to bash
2.6.1. Boot Loader stage
2.6.2. Kernel Stage
2.6.3. The INIT stage
2.7. Exercises and Summary
2.7.1. Review Questions
2.7.2. References
2.7.3. Exercises

Prerequisites

Goals

2.1. Overview

Taking a closer look at the booting process helps troubleshooting when dealing with both hardware and software problems.

We first focus on the role of the init program and its associated configuration file /etc/inittab. The role of LILO or GRUB at boot time is investigated in greater depth. Finally we summarize the booting process. The document From Power to Bash Prompt written by Greg O'Keefe as well as the boot(7) manpage are both good references for this module.

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1.4. Exercises and Summary Home 2.2. Understanding Runlevels