boot sequence discussion

[Charles Steinkuehler]

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> Who has a link to a current boot process explanation? not a howto, but
> a lecture, covering what is supposed to be happening at each point in
> a modern complex linux boot?

I'm no fedora expert, and I don't have a link to a lecture, but your
problem is happening before things really get complex.

You mentioned you're not using a modular kernel, so you generally should
not require an initial ramdisk.  The boot process should basically be:

(apologies in advance if this seems too basic)
- - BIOS performs POST and boots from selected primary boot device
- - Your boot loader (grub? lilo?) reads the linux kernel into memory
- - The boot loader runs the linux kernel
- - The linux kernel detects hardware, disk partitions, MD devices, etc.
- - The linux kernel mounts the root partition read-only
- - The linux kernel runs init
- - Init starts launching all the startup scripts, and the startup
sequence rapidly become complex and disto specific

You indicated init is not being run, which says to me that your kernel
is not seeing your root device.  This could be due to an incorrect root=
kernel command line, or missing module(s) required for your hardware.

Also, please note that if you are booting from a software raid, all
required raid modules must be compiled into the kernel, along with the
IDE/SCSI driver, proper filesystem, etc.

If you are booting from a logical volume, I think you have to use a
modular kernel, or at least an initial ramdisk (to get LVM running).

Have you crawled through the kernel output (use <shift>-<page up>)?

Can you see where the kernel found your disk(s) and any partitions present?

- --
Charles Steinkuehler
charles at steinkuehler.net
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