The Linux Boot Sequence

You might remember when you installed Linux that the installation process prompted you for a list of partitions and the sizes of each in which your filesystems would be placed.

When allocating disk space for the partitions, the first sector, or data unit, for each partition is always reserved for programmable code used in booting. The very first sector of the hard disk is reserved for the same purpose and is called the master boot record (MBR).

When booting from a hard disk, the PC system BIOS loads and executes the boot loader code in the MBR. The MBR then needs to know which partitions on the disk have boot loader code specific to their operating systems in their boot sectors and then attempts to boot one of them.

Fedora Linux is supplied with the GRUB boot loader which is fairly sophisticated and therefore cannot entirely fit in the 512 bytes of the MBR. The GRUB MBR boot loader merely searches for a special boot partition and loads a second stage boot loader. This then reads the data in the /boot/grub/grub.conf configuration file, which lists all the available operating systems and their booting parameters. When this is complete, the second stage boot loader then displays the familiar Fedora branded splash screen that lists all the configured operating system kernels for your choice.

In some operating systems, such as Debian / Ubuntu, the /boot/grub/grub.conf file may also be referred to by the name /boot/grub/menu.lst.

Linux Runlevels

Mode Directory Run Level Description
0 /etc/rc.d/rc0.d Halt
1 /etc/rc.d/rc1.d Single-user mode
2 /etc/rc.d/rc2.d Not used (user-definable)
3 /etc/rc.d/rc3.d Full multi-user mode (no GUI interface)
4 /etc/rc.d/rc4.d Not used (user-definable)
5 /etc/rc.d/rc5.d Full multiuser mode (with GUI interface)
6 /etc/rc.d/rc6.d Reboot

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