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Old 01-19-2006, 09:21 AM   #1
jbrush
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How does Linux boot? (long question)


Greetings,

I have dabbled with a number of distros over the last half dozen years, and kind of know my way around linux, not a newbie, but surely not close to an expert.

I have been trying to get Suse 9.1 to boot from a floppy for the past few days, without success. It also refuses to boot from the MBR with Lilo, or Grub, and so I have chosen to wrestle with it from the floppy POV, rather than fixing my MBR ten times a day till I get it.

The folks in the Suse forum have been a big help, and this is just one of those things that although I should walk away from it and bag it, I hate to lose......

Rather than talk Suse, I would really like to know if anyone can either tell me, or point me to a resource that explains, how does Linux boot?

Over time many of us have learned how DOS, WinNT/2K/XP, OS/2, and others actually boot up and I can go to a machine with any of those OS's and create, or fix up, the boot process when it fails, or gets mucked up.

What I have right now is a Linux distro, Suse, sitting on hdd1, and no how, now way, has it been able to make a bootable floppy from Yast, and as I said, it screws up when I do the MBR as well. From what folks in Suse-land have shown me, it ought to work, but it doesn't for some reason.

I like to fix things, I like to win when it comes to software. However, all I know about booting linux is which button to click in which utility, and then I cross my fingers and if it doesn't do it right, I am screwed as I do not know enough to debug what has been created.

There sits Suse on hdd1, and I am sure that a savvy Linux user could sit down and edit, hack, or otherwise correct what YaST has created on that floppy, to make the system boot. Something is obviously not being created properly, and I know it can be fixed, give the proper understanding in the first place.

I do not refer to a list of "first tell it this, then tell it that, then cp this, and then cp that" I am in search of a step by step tutorial, if you will, that says the "the disk must be formatted thusly, and then when it is accessed, it looks for "this file" which tells the install how to proceed, and to find the kernel, which is either located here, or there" then it points to the /mount directory.... etc, etc. That way, when I try Mandrake next year, and have boot issues, I am able to just patch it up, and get on to the fun stuff.

Given such information, it would be possible for someone with a bit of savvy, to solve their own issues. What is the boot trying to say when it just puts the word "GRUB" in the upper left corner, or when it stops at "LI" or dumps random characters across the screen rather than booting. Those things are put there by wise programmers to help troubleshoot. Who has the key to what it all means? :-)

If I understood how it works, I think I can fix it and make it work, but in spite of the wonderful efforts of so many all over the planet, it requires knowledge of "why do I type that" rather than just "type it" and hope for the best.

I sure hope this long, boring diatrabe makes sense :-) I think its along the lines of the old "give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach him to fish, and feed him for life" <g> If I am going to use Linux, I need to know the hows and the whys'

I sure it published, or someone knows it. I would just like to have access to it.

Thanks for reading this far! :-)

John
 
Old 01-19-2006, 09:32 AM   #2
pixellany
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This is where some smart-aleck sometimes asks: "Could you repeat the question?"

Seriously, Google search will yield a TON of info on this. One place to start would be the latest GRUB manual.

Short answer:
After POST, the BIOS goes looking for boot code in the order specified in its config file--eg floppy, CD, then the first harddrive. The boot code, then sends the machine "somewhere else"--another sector for MORE boot code--or straight to a named file.
In linux, you typically wind up in /boot/grub running "Stage2" which is what displays the menu that allows you to select what OS to boot. After selecting Linux, grub loads the kernel from /boot---filename includes "vmlinuz"
The kernel takes over, and starts loading all the ancillary utilities, daemons, etc.
 
Old 01-19-2006, 03:35 PM   #3
jbrush
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pixellany
This is where some smart-aleck sometimes asks: "Could you repeat the question?"

Seriously, Google search will yield a TON of info on this. One place to start would be the latest GRUB manual.
Thank you. I find "use google" to be the 21st century equivalent to RTFM. Perhaps this forum could close, and just post "use Google" on the front page for anyone who comes around?

Quote:
Originally Posted by pixellany
Short answer:
After POST, the BIOS goes looking for boot code in the order specified in its config file--eg floppy, CD, then the first harddrive. The boot code, then sends the machine "somewhere else"--another sector for MORE boot code--or straight to a named file.
In linux, you typically wind up in /boot/grub running "Stage2" which is what displays the menu that allows you to select what OS to boot. After selecting Linux, grub loads the kernel from /boot---filename includes "vmlinuz"
The kernel takes over, and starts loading all the ancillary utilities, daemons, etc.

Thank you again. Does anyone know where I might look to learn how linux boots? I know how BIOSes work, I understand the MBR code, what I do not understand is what ought to be on the floppy, in order to get from the BIOS, to the /boot on the installed system. Suse made me floppies for both LILO and GRUB, and neither one works. It alse blew up my MBR when I tried to put one or the other in there. Not a big deal to fix, but it does show me that in my case, Suse is incapable of providing a way to boot it up.

Seems to me, a savvy user could concoct a floppy on their own, without some utility that is having a problem and getting it wrong. Lilo and Grub appear rather simplistic, and as you pointed out, they just bridge the BIOS call over to the installation, but what are those intermediate steps?

I have a Yast-generated floppy that does not work. I am hoping someone knows what should be there, and what I need to modify in order to use Suse, and if its not at someone's fingertips, perhaps a URL or a chapter in a book? Maybe someone actually has one that works which would help find what I need to alter on mine? They systems would likely not be on the same drive/partition, but I would think that could be edited and made to line up properly.

The failed boot pops up LI, GRUB, 00 00 00, 01 01 01, and 99 99 across the screen, which I would bet have some useful meaning. Anyone know what its trying to tell me by those codes?

When OS/2 or windows2K messes up its boot, I know how to edit/hack/modify/recreate what is needed without needed those systems to even be functional. Seems the same knowledge must exist for a linux system.

Thanks much

John
 
Old 01-19-2006, 08:11 PM   #4
pixellany
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As I said, get the GRUB manual (from the GRUB web site)

If you are particularly persistent, you may find reading the GRUB source code to be useful.

Here is the first hit from typing "linux boot" in Google:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/x1440.html
 
Old 01-19-2006, 08:26 PM   #5
haertig
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbrush
Thank you. I find "use google" to be the 21st century equivalent to RTFM. Perhaps this forum could close, and just post "use Google" on the front page for anyone who comes around?
Well, don't get mad. If you take the subject line of your post here, "How does Linux boot?" and type it verbatim into Google, the results might surprise you. I think pixellany gave good advice on trying Google, along with even more information after that in the "Short answer" section.
 
Old 01-19-2006, 09:59 PM   #6
jbrush
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haertig
Well, don't get mad. If you take the subject line of your post here, "How does Linux boot?" and type it verbatim into Google, the results might surprise you. I think pixellany gave good advice on trying Google, along with even more information after that in the "Short answer" section.
I am not mad :-) I am just weary of asking a question, getting an email that I am hoping will steer me in the right direction, and hurrying to the forum, dying for help, and instead, its just a "go look in the world's largest library, its in there somewhere" That is great advice, just not very helpful.

If that is the answer to any question here, why is the point of linuxquestions.org, or any similar board?

If you take the subject line of ANY post on this forum, and plug it into ANY search engine, you will get tons of information.

The error I made was I thought linuxquestions.org was a quick and easier way to get, and give, assistance to avoid hours spent combing the internet on a slow dialup, one web site at a time.

The upside of all of this is that I solved the problem. Now all I have to do is put up a web page explaining what I did, so when the next person asks, and gets told to "just google," they might find out what I learned.



John
 
Old 01-19-2006, 10:33 PM   #7
haertig
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbrush
If you take the subject line of ANY post on this forum, and plug it into ANY search engine, you will get tons of information.
I suppose you're correct. ;-)

I'll relate a funny story here (turns out the joke's on me!) When I saw your quote above, I thought - HA! - I'll prove him wrong. So I went to Google and searched on one of the more uninformative, but common, subject lines found in postings: "Please help a stupid newbie!" I thought, sure that will turn up tons of information, none of it useful.

Much to my chagrin, that very search turns up, as the FIRST hit, a very good article entitled "How to ask questions the smart way"

Damn, Google is good!

;-)
 
Old 01-19-2006, 11:15 PM   #8
pixellany
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbrush
I am not mad :-) I am just weary of asking a question, getting an email that I am hoping will steer me in the right direction, and hurrying to the forum, dying for help, and instead, its just a "go look in the world's largest library, its in there somewhere" That is great advice, just not very helpful.

If that is the answer to any question here, why is the point of linuxquestions.org, or any similar board?

If you take the subject line of ANY post on this forum, and plug it into ANY search engine, you will get tons of information.

The error I made was I thought linuxquestions.org was a quick and easier way to get, and give, assistance to avoid hours spent combing the internet on a slow dialup, one web site at a time.

The upside of all of this is that I solved the problem. Now all I have to do is put up a web page explaining what I did, so when the next person asks, and gets told to "just google," they might find out what I learned.

John
Gosh, John......lets review the record:
1. You asked a long question that centered on your desire to learn more in a general topic area--it was not one specific question.
2. Several of us gave you helpful suggestions---even after some of your sarcastic comebacks.
3. When you ask a question such as yours, sometimes the right answer is to go read something. Sorry if that doesn't fit in to your view of the world.

In the long posts, I don't remember seeing whether you read the GRUB manual. When people suggest things, it's often good to try what they say and THEN come back for more.

Bottom line: We will help you--if you let us.
 
Old 01-22-2006, 12:25 AM   #9
jbrush
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pixellany
As I said, get the GRUB manual (from the GRUB web site)

If you are particularly persistent, you may find reading the GRUB source code to be useful.

Here is the first hit from typing "linux boot" in Google:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bootdisk-HOWTO/x1440.html

You should have looked a little further than the first page. There are two links. One is dead, and the other goes off the deep end with manuals, how2's and all kinds of information. I did not find anything useful on booting Linux from that page. Google is probably better suited for people with broadband connections, and lots of time on their hands. I am sorry that I don't have either. For those who are on broadband, try to remember what its like at 45K.... Its really pathetic with the way web pages are built anymore... :-)

John
 
Old 01-22-2006, 12:33 AM   #10
KimVette
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbrush
I am not mad :-) I am just weary of asking a question, getting an email that I am hoping will steer me in the right direction, and hurrying to the forum, dying for help, and instead, its just a "go look in the world's largest library, its in there somewhere" That is great advice, just not very helpful.
When you're in a hurry you should try google first, followed by searching the forum using the "search" feature above.


And OMFG the first hit on google is:

http://www.losurs.org/docs/linuxinit

Page two of google search engine results:

http://www.pycs.net/lateral/stories/23.html

Sometimes there are such complete howtos available that actually doing your own footwork rather than expecting to be spoon-fed will turn up some excellent help - and best of all, you get your answer immediately, rather than having to wait minutes, hours, or days for someone to post a reply.
 
Old 01-22-2006, 12:38 AM   #11
jbrush
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pixellany
Gosh, John......lets review the record:
1. You asked a long question that centered on your desire to learn more in a general topic area--it was not one specific question.
2. Several of us gave you helpful suggestions---even after some of your sarcastic comebacks.
3. When you ask a question such as yours, sometimes the right answer is to go read something. Sorry if that doesn't fit in to your view of the world.

In the long posts, I don't remember seeing whether you read the GRUB manual. When people suggest things, it's often good to try what they say and THEN come back for more.

Bottom line: We will help you--if you let us.
I mean no disrespect. How brilliant would it be to bite the hand that feeds?

Still, I have not gotten a response that is of any value. Its quite true that I probably went on too long and neglected a specific question, but I keep looking at my original, way to long post, and it implies that I think there ought to be someone who can boot a linux system without a utility to create the disk for them. That is what I thought, but I see that no one who has read the thread has the faintest idea of how to do that. What is cool after all this, is that I can now do it, but I gotta believe it would have been more efficient to have found someone who knows how it works, and has already written it down, to help me out. I cannot imaging relying on an OS of any kind, and not having the faintest idea of how to boot it up if something goes wrong.

As for number 3, I WAS asking for something to go read, but already know about google. The theory is, someone who has done this before, knows a URL or a library type of book which contains the answer, so I either can spend hours, maybe days, searching the web, or ask if someone here knows right where it is. That's the purpose of all this forum stuff, right? To save people from reinventing the same thing over and over again. No?

Usually, these kinds of things that are that important, are written up concisely, and clearly, somewhere, which is what I was asking for. In the world of DOS/Win/OS2, the answer to the same question is easily pointed to, and written in english. I thought that might be the case for linux as well.

I do appreciate your time, and your patience.

Regards,

John
 
Old 01-22-2006, 12:47 AM   #12
KimVette
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jbrush
As for number 3, I WAS asking for something to go read, but already know about google. The theory is, someone who has done this before, knows a URL or a library type of book which contains the answer, so I either can spend hours, maybe days, searching the web, or ask if someone here knows right where it is.
It's quite obvious that you didn't even ATTEMPT any searches prior to posting, as there is a wealth of information available by simply copy & Pasting the question in the thread title into Google.

Quote:
That's the purpose of all this forum stuff, right? To save people from reinventing the same thing over and over again. No?
Of course it is, but by that logic, if you had done a very simple search, you'd have avoided asking people to reinvent a search query.
 
Old 01-22-2006, 12:58 AM   #13
jbrush
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KimVette
When you're in a hurry you should try google first, followed by searching the forum using the "search" feature above.


And OMFG the first hit on google is:

http://www.losurs.org/docs/linuxinit

Page two of google search engine results:

http://www.pycs.net/lateral/stories/23.html

Sometimes there are such complete howtos available that actually doing your own footwork rather than expecting to be spoon-fed will turn up some excellent help - and best of all, you get your answer immediately, rather than having to wait minutes, hours, or days for someone to post a reply.

OMFG? Where I come from, that means oh my fucking god. Is that the way you want to start your conversation with me? Hiding obnoxious language in an acronym is really bogus.

Truth is that is not the most efficient way. Google does NOT give that page as its first hit, probably because you chose different search terms, but did not post them here. Did you know that a search today, and a search tomorrow can, and often does, turn up different results on Google, because of how they weight their search terms?

And, curiously, neither of those pages says anything that relates to what I was trying to acccomplish. Nothing useful for someone who wants to learn more than just BOIS to MBR to Kernel to OS.

I do resent the spoon feed comment, because in addition to getting answers, I stupidly thought it would be fun to participate in the linux community, but instead, I get oh my fucking god.

Fact is, I DID do a forum search, and it appears that no one who uses linux, knows how to do what I was wanting to learn about because it does not appear anywhere in the archives.

When your solution to a question about where something is located is "use Google" that just begs the question "what good are you, and why did you bother to post such a useless response?"

If your solution is to first search google, what are you doing here? Everything here, can be found on Google, so this place has no value based on what you suggest. RTFM, do it yourself, and don't bother asking anyone, anything, ever. That is what you imply for me to do, so take your own advice, and move on with it.

Linux is a pretty okay OS, but the community has a bit of an ego problem, and ought to look at itself and find out if perhaps many of them are not just a bit to uppity for the average person to want to deal with. Apparently you do not know how to create a bootable disk without some kind of utility to hold your hand. Fine for you, but I prefer to understand what my computer is doing. If you don't have a solution to the issue being discussed, shut up.

I was gonna ask elsewhere for some help with my Palm Pilot, but I don't see the point if all I am gonna get is "don't bother us, go search the whole damn internet"

John
 
Old 01-22-2006, 01:20 AM   #14
jbrush
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KimVette
It's quite obvious that you didn't even ATTEMPT any searches prior to posting, as there is a wealth of information available by simply copy & Pasting the question in the thread title into Google.

Of course it is, but by that logic, if you had done a very simple search, you'd have avoided asking people to reinvent a search query.

When a person starts a new thread, it is suggested by the forum software, to search the all forums first, which I did, and found nothing on the topic. Nothing at all. Nothing. Do you get that? Nothing. Who exactly are you to imply that I did not?? Are you the forum boss? Do you get automatically notified about people who post without first searching? Somehow I don't think so, and therefore I must ask that you stop making stupid innuendo in order to persue your adventure in trolling this thread.

Second of all, if you have any good reason for this forum to exist, I would like to hear it. If you believe that anyone with a question ought to search the whole internet first, and then ask here if Google fails them, then I submit that you do not know what a forum like this even exists for. It seems to me, you have it all wrong. First you ask the community who specializes, and when they tell you to go to hell, and badger you for bothering to ask, then you unsubcribe, and use a search engine.

As I mentioned before, there is NOTHING on this forum that cannot be found with an internet search engine, so apparently linuxquestions.org exists soley for people like you, to pop into threads, and tell people that they should not be asking questions, unless they have spent hours and days first searching the entire internet. Its really hard to get past the fact that I came here, asked if anyone knew a reference or had info on a topic, and all you can do is complain that I didn't search google before BOTHERING anyone on linuxquestions.org. Even tho linux has a fairly steep learning curve, folks like you probably cause more people to quit on linux, than those who bag it because it is a challenge to learn.

I think that is a pretty stupid, pathetic point of view, and a terribly useless thing for another person to waste their time on, but I have come across hundreds of people who troll forums looking for validation for their simple existence. As long as there are forums, there will be such people. Too bad. Just too bad.
 
Old 01-22-2006, 01:21 AM   #15
stakhous
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I have to agree with JBrush on this one. Telling someone to search Google solves nothing. Forums "should" be used to share information that can lead to an appropriate answer.

If someone asked me a question, I would search Google, find a relavent link and post the link. Then tell them that I found this answer through Google.

Last edited by stakhous; 01-22-2006 at 01:24 AM.
 
  


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