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Standard options

The 1.1.90 kernel recognizes the options debug, no387, no-hlt, ramdisk= size, reserve= base, size,, root= device, ro, and rw, and all current init programs also recognize the option single. The options lock and vga are processed by the boot loader itself. Boot command-line options are always case-sensitive.

single boots the system in single-user mode. This bypasses most system initialization procedures and directly starts a root shell on the console. Multi-user mode can typically be entered by exiting the single-user shell or by rebooting.

root= device changes the root device. This overrides settings that may have been made in the boot image and on the LILO command line. device is either the hexadecimal device number gif or the full path name of the device, e.g. /dev/hda3". gif

reserve= base, size, reserves IO port regions. This can be used to prevent device drivers from auto-probing addresses where other devices are located, which get confused by the probing.

ro instructs the kernel to mount the root file system read-only. rw mounts it read-write. If neither ro nor rw is specified, the setting from the boot image is used.

no-hlt avoids executing a HLT instructions whenever the system is idle. HLT normally significantly reduces power consumption and therefore also heat dissipation of the CPU, but may not work properly with some clone CPUs. no387 disables using the hardware FPU even if one is present.

debug enables more verbose console logging.

vga= mode alters the VGA mode set at startup. The values normal, extended, ask or a decimal number are recognized. (See also page gif.)

Finally, lock stores the current command-line as the default command-line, so that LILO boots the same image with the same options (including lock) when invoked the next time.



next up previous contents
Next: Device-specific options Up: Boot command-line options Previous: Boot command-line options



Ross Biro
Sat May 20 13:51:22 PDT 1995