Red Hat LINUX 7.2 Reference Manual page 38

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• image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.0-0.43.6 specifies the linux kernel to boot with this par-
ticular boot option.
• label=linux names the operating system option in the LILO screen. In this case, it also is the
name that is referred to by the default line.
• initrd=/boot/initrd-2.4.0-0.43.6.img refers to the initial ram disk image that is
used at boot time to actually initialize and start the devices that makes booting the kernel possible.
The initial ram disk is a collection of machine-specific drivers necessary to operate the hard drive
and anything needed to load the kernel. You should never try to share initial ram disks between
machines unless they are identical in their hardware configurations and kernel versions (and even
then, it is a bad idea).
• read-only specifies that the root partition (see the root line below) as one that cannot be
changed, only read.
• root=/dev/hda5 tells LILO what disk partition to use as the root partition.
LILO then shows the Red Hat Linux initial screen with the different operating systems or kernels it
has been configured to boot. If you only have Red Hat Linux installed and have not changed anything
in /etc/lilo.conf, you will only see linux as an option. If you install SMP kernel support, you
will see linux-up as an option. If you have set up LILO to boot other operating systems as well, this
screen is your chance to select what operating system will boot. Use your arrow keys to highlight the
operating system and press
If you would like to have a command prompt to enter commands to LILO, press
plays a LILO: prompt on the screen and waits for input from the user. (The amount of time LILO
waits is set by the timeout line in the /etc/lilo.conf file.) If your /etc/lilo.conf is
set to give LILO a choice of operating systems, at this time you could type in the label for whichever
operating system you want to boot.
If LILO is booting Linux, it first loads the kernel into memory, which is a vmlinuz file (plus a version
number, for example, vmlinuz-2.4.0-xx) located in the /boot directory. Then the kernel passes
control to init.
At this point, with the kernel loaded into memory and operational, Linux is already started, although
at a very basic level. However, with no applications utilizing the kernel and with no ability for the user
to provide meaningful input to the system, not much can be done with it. The init program solves
this problem by bringing up the various services that allow the system to perform its particular role.
3.2.2 Init
The kernel finds init in /sbin and executes it, and init which coordinates the rest of the boot
process.
Chapter 3:Boot Process, Init, and Shutdown
[Enter]
[Ctrl]-[X] . LILO dis-