In order to be able to boot your Red Hat Linux system, you usually need to
install a boot loader. In Red Hat Linux 7.2 you have two options, GRUB or
LILO (the LInux LOader). You
may install the boot loader in one of two places:
- The master boot record (MBR)
The recommended place to install a boot loader, unless the MBR already
starts another operating system loader, such as System Commander
or OS/2's
Boot Manager. The MBR is a special area on your hard drive that
is automatically loaded by your computer's BIOS, and is the
earliest point at which the boot loader can take control of the
boot process. If you install it in the MBR, when your machine
boots, GRUB (or LILO) will present a boot prompt. You can then
boot Red Hat Linux or any other operating system that you have configured
the boot loader to boot.
- The first sector of your root partition
Recommended if you are already using another boot loader on your
system (such as OS/2's Boot Manager). In this case, your other
boot loader will take control first. You can then configure that
boot loader to start GRUB (or LILO), which will then boot Red Hat Linux.
Select where you would like GRUB (or LILO) to be installed on your
system. If your system will use only Red Hat Linux, you should choose the
MBR. For systems with Windows 95/98, you should also install the boot
loader to the MBR so that it can boot both operating systems.
 | Caution |
|---|
| | If you choose not to install GRUB or LILO for any reason, you will not
be able to boot your Red Hat Linux system directly, and you will need to use
another boot method (such as a boot diskette). Use this option only
if you are sure you have another way of booting your Red Hat Linux system!
|
If you wish to add default options to GRUB or LILO's boot command, enter
them into the Kernel parameters field. Any options
you enter will be passed to the Linux kernel every time it boots.
The Force use of LBA32 (not normally required)
option allows you to exceed the 1024 cylinder limit for the
/boot partition. If you have a system which
supports the LBA32 extension for booting operating systems above the
1024 cylinder limit, you want to place your /boot
partition above this limit, and the installation program has not already
detected this extension from your BIOS, you should select this
option.
Every bootable partition is listed, including partitions used by other
operating systems. The partition holding your Red Hat Linux system's root
filesystem will have a Boot label of
linux. Other partitions may also have boot labels.
If you would like to add boot labels for other partitions (or change an
existing boot label), click once on the partition to select it. Once
selected, you can change the boot label.
 | Note |
|---|
| | The Boot label column lists what you must enter
at the boot prompt in order to boot the desired operating system.
However, if you forget the boot labels defined on your system, you can
always press [Tab] at the prompt to display a list of
defined boot labels.
|
If you need to use rescue mode, there are several options available to you.
Using the CD-ROM to boot, type linux
rescue at the
boot: prompt.
Using the network boot disk, type linux
rescue at the boot: prompt. You
will then be prompted to retrieve the rescue image from the
network.
Using the boot disk included with the Red Hat Linux boxed set, type
linux rescue at the
boot: prompt. You then pick an installation
method and choose a valid installation tree to load from.
For more information regarding rescue mode, refer to
Official Red Hat Linux Customization Guide.
If you do not wish to use GRUB or LILO to boot your Red Hat Linux system, you have
several alternatives:
- Boot disk
As previously stated, you can use the boot disk created by the
installation program (if you elected to create one).
- LOADLIN
You can load Linux from MS-DOS. Unfortunately, it requires a
copy of the Linux kernel (and an initial RAM disk, if you have a
SCSI adapter) to be available on an MS-DOS partition. The only
way to accomplish this is to boot your Red Hat Linux system using some
other method (for example, from LILO on a diskette) and then
copy the kernel to an MS-DOS partition. LOADLIN is available
from ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/boot/dualboot/
and associated mirror sites.
- SYSLINUX
SYSLINUX is an MS-DOS program very similar to LOADLIN. It is
also available from ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/boot/loaders/ and
associated mirror sites.
- Some commercial boot loaders
You can load Linux using commercial boot loaders. For example,
System Commander and Partition Magic are able to boot Linux (but
still require GRUB or LILO to be installed in your Linux root
partition).
This section is specific to SMP motherboards only. If the installation
program detects an SMP motherboard on your system, it will
automatically create two /boot/grub/grub.conf or
/etc/lilo.conf entries (depending on the boot loader
you installed), rather than the usual single entry.
The two entries in grub.conf will be
Red Hat Linux (kernel
version) and Red Hat
Linux (kernel
versions-smp). The Red
Hat Linux (kernel version-smp)
will boot by default. However, if you have trouble with the SMP
kernel, you can elect to boot the Red Hat Linux
(kernel version) entry
instead. You will retain all the functionality as before, but you will
only be operating with a single processor.
The two entries in lilo.conf will be
linux and
linux-up. The
linux will boot by default. However,
if you have trouble with the SMP kernel, you can elect to boot the
linux-up entry instead. You will
retain all the functionality as before, but you will only be operating
with a single processor.
