Boot tree

author:linea, bellard

From BIOS to /etc/init.d/rcS

../_images/boot-tree.svg

Boot tree

1 Uncommon is LVM, RAID, crypto, loop or subdir mount with preinit rootfs.
2 Versatile boot floppy
3 Boot floppy set.
4 LAN PXE or WEB boot.
5 gpxe.pxe.
6 Tiny slitaz, see http://tiny.slitaz.org/
7 Lowram CD.
8 kexec command from the kexec-tools package.

SliTaz ISO image boot tricks

The CD-ROM image has a hybrid format from version 5.0.

  • It boots from a CD-ROM drive according to the El Torito specification as usual (BIOS or UEFI)

  • It boots from a memory card / USB key using the syslinux hybrid format (BIOS) or using a FAT partition mapped in the ISO image (UEFI).

  • It launches a USB boot key creation utility from Windows (32 bits).

  • It can boot from DOS (real mode or virtual 8086 with EMM386) directly:

    C:\> ren slitaz.iso slitaz.exe
C:\> slitaz.exe

    Tip

    The files bzImage, memtest and ipxe can boot with DOS too:

    C:\> ren bzimage bzimage.exe
C:\> bzimage.exe root=/dev/hda3 autologin

C:\> ren memtest memtest.exe
C:\> memtest.exe

C:\> ren ipxe ipxe.exe
C:\> ipxe.exe http://myserver.org/boot.php

  • It is easily customizable with the iso2exe (compatible with taziso or tazpanel ‣ boot ‣ ISO mine) tool:

    iso2exe -a "lang=fr_FR kmap=fr-latin1 tz=Europe/Paris" -i myconfig.gz slitaz.iso
iso2exe -l slitaz.iso
iso2exe -r slitaz.iso custom.append custom.initrd
taziso slitaz.iso getcustomconf
taziso slitaz.iso isomd5

    Tip

    You can tune the boot process with your own /init script:

    #!/bin/sh

sed -i 's,^RUN_DAEMONS=",RUN_DAEMONS="dropbear ,' /etc/rcS.conf
cat >> /etc/init.d/local.sh <<EOM
/my/special/inits.sh
EOM
exec /init "$@"

    Update the kernel command line:

    iso2exe -a "rdinit=/myinit lang=fr_FR kmap=fr-latin1 tz=Europe/Paris" -i myconfig slitaz.iso -f