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<H4>"The Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"</H4>
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<H4>By James T. Dennis,
<a href="mailto:answerguy@ssc.com">answerguy@ssc.com</a><BR>
Starshine Technical Services,
<A HREF="http://www.starshine.org/">http://www.starshine.org/</A>
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<H3 align="left"><img src="../../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif" height="50" width="60"
alt="(?) " border="0">How Many Ways Can I Boot Thee:
Let Me Count Them</H3>
<p><strong>From Wilke Havinga on Tue, 17 Nov 1998
(from the L.U.S.T List)</strong></p>
<!-- begin 17 -->
<P><STRONG><FONT COLOR="#000099"><EM>
<BR>>I understand that Linux cannot be on the slave drive.
</EM></FONT></STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
You misunderstand. Linux can be installed on most
combinations of devices. You can have the kernel on any
drive where your loader can find it (for LILO that means
anywhere that your BIOS can access, for LOADLIN.EXE --- a
DOS program that means anywhere that DOS can access).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You could put your kernel completely outside of any
filesystem, laying it out at some arbitrary location on some
hard disk. So long as you can get your loader code to find
it --- you can load that kernel. (You could use the
<TT>/sbin/lilo</TT> utility to prepare this particular set of LILO
boot blocks and maps --- since it needs to find the kernel
image and it's a linux program. However you could hand
craft your own maps if you were really determined to have
a kernel laying on the unused portion of track zero or
on some part of your disk that was between or after the
defined partitions).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Once the kernel is loaded it looks for a root filesystem.
For any given kernel there is a compiled-in default.
This can be modified using the 'rdev' command (which
performs a binary patch of the kernel image). It can
also be overridden by supplying the kernel with a
command line parameter (root=). There are a number
of kernel command line parameters (all of the form:
option=value) --- these can be passed to it via the LILO
"prompt" or the <TT>/etc/lilo.conf</TT> append= directive, or on
the LOADLIN command line (among others).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Read the BootParam HOWTO and man page (section 7 of the
man pages) for details about kernel parameters.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You can boot a kernel directly from a floppy (just dd the
kernel image to the raw floppy). You can also use LILO on a
floppy. You can create a bootable DOS floppy with a copy of
LOADLIN and a linux kernel on it (with an AUTOEXEC.BAT if
you like). You can even use the SYSLINUX package (available
as DOS and linux binaries). This modifies a (non-bootable)
DOS formatted floppy to boot a Linux kernel (and is used by
the Linux Router Project and <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A>
boot diskettes).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
It is also possible to boot Linux from some sorts of
FlashROM and ROMdisk emulators and from other forms of ROM
installation. You can even boot Linux across a network
using a boot prom for those ethernet cards that support them
(for example).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Igel makes PC hardware with embedded versions of Linux for
their line of X terminals, thin clients and
"Ethermulation"<TT>/</TT>"Etherterminals" (thse boot from flash).
<A HREF="http://www.igelusa.com">http://www.igelusa.com</A>.
Also there are many discussions of
alternative boot methods and devices that are regularly
discussed on the "Embedded Linux" mailing list at
'<A HREF="http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=linux-embedded"
>http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=linux-embedded</A>'
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><FONT COLOR="#000099"><EM><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/qbub.gif"
ALT="(?)" HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
<BR>>Hmm... That's odd, because I have Linux on a slave HD right here on this
<BR>>computer and it works fine. I'm certain it doesn't have trouble getting
<BR>>at drives on the secondary controller, either.
</EM></FONT></STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG><FONT COLOR="#000066"><EM>
Booting with LILO? Or Loadlin?
</EM></FONT></STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG><FONT COLOR="#000066"><EM>
[prior partition dicussion snipped]
Don't forget, Linux needs a swap partition.
</EM></FONT></STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
This is not entirely true, if you have enough RAM (like, >64MB will be
enough for most people) you don't need one. It's only that RedHat requires
you to have one (which I find pretty annoying sometimes because you can
have only 4 partitions on a drive, especially on large drives).
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
While technically you are correct, you don't <EM>need</EM> a swap
partition, this is bad advice.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You'll find that you performance suffers dramatically
without one. Although I make a couple of 64M swap
partitions available on my system (allowing Linux to load
balance across a couple of spindles if it should ever need
to), it typically used about 30K of swap even when I have
plenty of RAM free (most of it is used in file/cache
buffering).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Read the kernel list archives and search for the term "swap"
and you'll find that the consensus among the kernel
developers is that you <EM>need</EM> swap to get decent performance
out of the current kernels. Some have even reported that
using 100 or 200K RAM disk with a swap <EM>file</EM> on it will
dramatically improve the performance over using all of your
memory as straight RAM.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
So, Red Hat's insistence may be irritating --- but it is
not wholly without cause.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You are wrong about the number of permitted partitions
per drive. You can have four <EM>primary</EM> partition entries.
One of those can be an "extended" partition. That extended
partition can have "lots" of partitions. Let's look at
an example from 'antares', my decade old 386DX33 with
32Mb of RAM and a full SCSI chain:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<blockquote><pre>Disk /dev/hda: 16 heads, 38 sectors, 683 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 608 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 1 107 32509 4 DOS 16-bit <32M
/dev/hda2 108 108 684 175408 a5 BSD/386
</pre></blockquote><BLOCKQUOTE>
.... and old <A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</A> partition that I haven't used
in a couple of years. This is the boot drive. I use
LOADLIN to get into Linux.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<blockquote><pre>Disk /dev/sda: 64 heads, 32 sectors, 1908 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1 32 32098+ 83 Linux native
/dev/sda2 5 32 102 72292+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/sda3 14 102 1907 1847475 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 14 103 236 136521 83 Linux native
/dev/sda6 31 236 495 265041 83 Linux native
/dev/sda7 64 495 1248 771088+ 83 Linux native
/dev/sda8 1184 1248 1907 674698+ 83 Linux native
</pre></blockquote><BLOCKQUOTE>
Whoa nelly! I have 3 <EM>primary</EM> partitions: 1 2 3 ---
the third defined the entended partition. Therein
I have 5, 6, 7, and 8 --- another four partition on
that same drive. I think I've gone upto 10 at least
once --- though I don't know of a limit to these extensions.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<blockquote><pre>Disk /dev/sdb: 64 heads, 32 sectors, 532 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 1 17 17392 83 Linux native
/dev/sdb2 18 18 532 527360 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 18 18 532 527344 83 Linux native
</pre></blockquote><BLOCKQUOTE>
Lookie! A disk with two primaries, one defining an
extended partition that contains a single Linux fs.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<blockquote><pre>Disk /dev/sdc: 64 heads, 32 sectors, 2063 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Begin Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 1 2063 2112496 83 Linux native
</pre></blockquote><BLOCKQUOTE>
... Oh. One that just has one partition on it.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
(The rest of this SCSI chain consists of a CD, a CDR,
a 4mm DAT autochanger tape drive, and an old magneto
optical drive).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
So if you intend to run RedHat (which is probably the easiest to install)
you need 2 partitions for Linux indeed.
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Yes. However, you can just put these in extended
partitions (one primary partition is labeled as "the
'extended' partition" --- then all partitions defined
within that are called "extended partitions" --- an
irritating bit of terminology that serves to confuse).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Wilke Havinga
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
I hope that helps.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- end 17 -->
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<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 align="center"><a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/ssc.copying.html"
>Copyright ©</a> 1998, James T. Dennis
<BR>Published in <I>The Linux Gazette</I> Issue 35 December 1998</H5>
<P> <hr> <P>
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