I am trying to get a bootloader to work and have no idea about the entire boot process for Linux. This is new to me.

1) How can I tell the bootloader to look for the harddrive?

2) How can I tell the bootloader to look for either a SATA or a PATA harddrive?

3) Someone gave me a link to a book about Linux here in the forum, and it is: www.kroah.com/lkn. I can read it to learn about the kernel. What is the boot process if I do not use an initrd?

4) What are these runlevels in the boot process?

I would suggest a live cd for a starter. To get one to boot you need to set your computer bios to boot cd before the hd. It was easier for me to learn (and still learning) about linux by having distro installed on the hd and able to work on as I read. Most linux distros will partition your hd automatically if you let them and will set up a dual boot with your windows to let you adjust slowly. If you want of jump in and do away with everything on your hd that option is there also.

There are also numerous articles here on the boot process in the tutorials and there are probably at least four to five threads started everyday with problems and solutions on booting. Use the 'Search' at the top of the page.

Here is some documentation on the grub bootloader which I recommend over the older lilo:

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html

The boot process without the initrd simply skips loading and executing an initrd.


You don't have to have run levels. You can simply boot the kernel and then start a busy box command shell. If you have run levels then after you finish booting the kernel you select a run level which is a series of scripts to set up the shell. Popular possibilities for a shell are bash, kdm, gdm, and busy box. Here is an explanation of the Red Hat run level system:

http://www.networkclue.com/os/Linux/run-levels.aspx

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Steve Stites

Thank you for the comments. The links will be helpful.