The kernel has a limited capability to accept information at boot in the form of a `command line', similar to an argument list you would give to a program. In general this is used to supply the kernel with information about hardware parameters that the kernel would not be able to determine on its own, or to avoid/override the values that the kernel would otherwise detect.
However, if you just copy a kernel image directly to a floppy,
(e.g. cp zImage /dev/fd0) then
you are not given a chance to specify any arguments to that
kernel. So most Linux users will use software like LILO
or loadlin that takes care of handing these arguments
to the kernel, and then booting it.
This present revision covers distribution kernels up to and including v1.2.13. Information pertaining to development kernels up to version 1.3.18 is also documented.
The BootPrompt-Howto is edited and maintained by:
Paul Gortmaker, Paul.Gortmaker@anu.edu.au
This document is not gospel. However, it is probably the most up to date info that you will be able to find. Nobody is responsible for what happens to your hardware but yourself. If your hardware goes up in smoke (...nearly impossible!) I take no responsibility. ie. THE AUTHOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES INCURRED DUE TO ACTIONS TAKEN BASED ON THE INFORMATION INCLUDED IN THIS DOCUMENT.
This document is Copyright (c) 1995 by Paul Gortmaker. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this document under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that this copyright notice is included exactly as in the original, and that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this document into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions.
If you are intending to incorporate this document into a published work, please contact me, and I will make an effort to ensure that you have the most up to date information available. In the past, out of date versions of the Linux howto documents have been published, which caused the developers undue grief from being plagued with questions that were already answered in the up to date versions.
The most up-to-date documentation will always be the kernel
source itself. Hold on! Don't get scared. You don't need to
know any programming to read the comments in the source files.
For example, if you were looking for what arguments could be
passed to the AHA1542 SCSI driver, then you would go to the
linux/drivers/scsi directory, and look at the
file aha1542.c -- and within the first 100 lines, you
would find a plain english description of the boot time arguments
that the 1542 driver accepts.
If you have figured out what boot-args you intend to use, and now want to know how to get that information to the kernel, then look at the documentation that comes with the software that you use to boot the kernel (e.g. LILO or loadlin).
If you have questions about passing boot arguments to the kernel, please READ this document first. If this and the related documentation mentioned above does not answer your question(s) then you can try the Linux newsgroups.
General questions on how to configure your system should be directed to comp.os.linux.setup. We ask that you please respect this general guideline for content, and don't cross-post your request to other groups.
New versions of this document can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from sunsite.unc.edu, in /pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/* and various Linux ftp mirror sites. Updates will be made as new information / drivers becomes available. If this copy that you are reading is more than 3 months old, it is either out of date, or it means that I have been lazy and haven't updated it. This document was produced by using the SGML system that was specifically set up for the Linux Howto project, and there are various output formats available, including, postscript, dvi, ascii, html, and soon TeXinfo.
I would recommend viewing it in the html (via a WWW browser) or the Postscript/dvi format. Both of these contain cross-references that are lost in the ascii translation.
If you want to get the official copy off sunsite, here is URL.
If minor additions and changes have been made, you can view the latest working copy from this URL.