1
For more on the system BIOS and the MBR, refer to
Section 2.1, “The BIOS”
.
The GRUB Boot Loader
When a computer with Red Hat Enterprise Linux is turned on, the operating system is loaded
into memory by a special program called a boot loader. A boot loader usually exists on the
system's primary hard drive (or other media device) and has the sole responsibility of loading
the Linux kernel with its required files or (in some cases) other operating systems into memory.
1. Boot Loaders and System Architecture
Each architecture capable of running Red Hat Enterprise Linux uses a different boot loader. The
following table lists the boot loaders available for each architecture:
Architecture
Boot Loaders
AMD
®
AMD64
GRUB
IBM
®
eServer
™
iSeries
™
OS/400
®
IBM
®
eServer
™
pSeries
™
YABOOT
IBM
®
S/390
®
z/IPL
IBM
®
eServer
™
zSeries
®
z/IPL
Intel
®
Itanium
™
ELILO
x86
GRUB
Table 2.1. Boot Loaders by Architecture
This chapter discusses commands and configuration options for the GRUB boot loader included
with Red Hat Enterprise Linux for the x86 architecture.
2. GRUB
The GNU GRand Unified Boot loader (GRUB) is a program which enables the selection of the
installed operating system or kernel to be loaded at system boot time. It also allows the user to
pass arguments to the kernel.
2.1. GRUB and the x86 Boot Process
This section discusses the specific role GRUB plays when booting an x86 system. For a look at
the overall boot process, refer to
Section 2, “A Detailed Look at the Boot Process”
.
GRUB loads itself into memory in the following stages:
1. The Stage 1 or primary boot loader is read into memory by the BIOS from the MBR
1
. The
Chapter 2.
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Summary of Contents for ENTERPRISE LINUX 4.5.0 -
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