Just booting tips


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  1. #26
    Join Date
    Jun 2004
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    Newcastle upon Tyne
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    (1) VMware car "read" an iso file and and fire up the kernel. One can't configure the boot loader inside to boot a system outside VMware or inside VMware, at least that is what I found. I suppose your definition of booting is different to mind.

    (2) Grub legacy can read any partition that it supports including those filing systems in MS Dos/Windows, Solaris and BSD. For those systems it doesn't support, like NTFS, Grub boots its OS indirectly by chainloading its boot sector. It virtually cut and paste itself with the next boot loader.

    Thus one can use Grub to display the Lilo's configuration and boot up that Linux without using Lilo.

    syslinux is a light weight Dos-based bootloader designed to run on fat partitions. I haven't gone into Grub 2 because it has no documentation. All the Linux I have seen so far are based on Grub legacy.

    (3) Closed

    (4) Grub is a general boot loader that can be used to boot any PC system. If a Truecrypt partition can be booted by a boot loader it is because that boot loader has been compiled with a Truecrypt driver. Grub does not have the *****ion to become a universal boot loader that can handle every filing system with every encryption. After all it is only a small boot loader suppose to pass the control to an operating system. It is not in a boot loader's scope to decipher the content of a encrypted partition. That job lies with the kernel.

    I expect Grub to be able to boot the boot loader of an encripted partition but I have not worked with the Encrpt partition. The boot loader in the boot sector is always stored in binary pattern ready to be loaded into the CPU. The boot sector is not a part of a filing system and so it is never encrypted, as far as I know, but that doesn't stop people doing non-standard PC feature with it.

    Grub legacy is already being acused of being too large for what it is able to do at the moment, relative to other boot loaders.

    (5) If the mobo does not support booting from a USB device then the Bios does know the existence of the USB device. In such case Grub can't find it because Grub relies on the Bios to get the disk information.

    Grub can boot from a CD. It has a special version of it called stage2_Eltorito. A minority of distros also use it. One can boot a CD with only Grub inside or with any operating system compiled as an iso to be booted by Grub. CD used a different filing system, has no partition and no usual sector devision as a hard disk.

    In general if the Bios reports a bootable device Grub legacy should be able to boot it. At least that is my experience so far.

    One has to remember at the time the boot loader is operating it does not have the benefit of a kernel and its drivers. The boot loader's duty is always to boot the kernel in Linux, a module in a Unix-like system or another boot loader of another operating system.
    Last edited by saikee; 04-07-2008 at 04:58 AM.
    Linux user started Jun 2004 - No. 361921
    Using a Linux live CD to clone XP
    To install Linux and keep Windows MBR untouched
    Adding extra Linux & Doing it in a lazy way
    A Grub menu booting 100+ systems & A "Howto" to install and boot 145 systems
    Just cloning tips Just booting tips A collection of booting tips

    Judge asked Linux "You are being charged murdering Windoze by stabbing its heart with a weapon, what was it?" Replied Linux "A Live CD"

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