User:SwifT/Complete Handbook/x86 Architecture

Booting CDs

BIOS

The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is the first system started when you power on your computer. It first performs a POST (Power-On Self Test) to verify if your hardware is still in good shape. When the POST gives the BIOS an okay, the BIOS will load the boot loader from the boot device configured in its memory. This boot loader then fires up the operating system and the entire system dance starts...

To boot from a CD, you need to configure your BIOS so that the CD-ROM device is the first boot device. Reboot your system and fire up the BIOS. You will be informed about what key to press right after (or during) the POST to get in the BIOS setup. Most BIOSes use Esc, F1, F2, DEL or F8.

Once you are inside the BIOS setup, search for the setting where you can change the boot device sequence. Some BIOSes place it beneath CMOS Setup, but there isn't a standard - each BIOS has its differences. Change the order so that the CD-ROM device is mentioned first before the first hard disk (HD-0). Such a setting will allow you to boot from a bootable CD if there is one in the CD-ROM drive, or boot from the hard drive otherwise.

Partitioning the disks

Partition layout

Each disk on an x86 system can have at most four primary partitions. This is a remnant of the old days when four partitions were considered enough. Each primary partition has its identification inside the first sector on the disk (the boot record). When you want more than four partitions, you should configure one of the primary partitions to contain all the non-primary partitions. This large primary partition is called the extended partition and the partitions inside it are called logical partitions.

The de facto standard device naming convention tells us that the primary partitions for a disk are numbered as 1 to 4 while the logical ones are 5 and higher, regardless of how many primary partitions you use. The naming convention also tells us how the disks themselves are named.

IDE device names start with hd followed by an alphabetic character which resembles the location of the disk in the system: the primary master¹ is hda, the primary slave hdb, the secondary master hdc, etc.
SCSI device names (and most Serial ATA ones as well) start with sd followed by an alphabetic character which resembles the position of the disk in the disk chain: the first one is sda, the second one sdb, etc.

Device files are located inside /dev, so if you want to identify the primary master IDE drive you would state /dev/hda.

Note
¹ IDE drives are controlled by an IDE controller. Each controller can govern two IDE devices at most: a master and a slave. The master drive has higher priority when both drives are attempting to send or receive data. A standard x86 system has two controllers, a primary one (ide0) and a secundary one (ide1).

Partitioning using cfdisk

The cfdisk tool allows you to quickly partition your disks and is a lot easier to use than fdisk. When you have fired up cfdisk (which selects /dev/hda by default - you can use a different disk by giving the device file name as an argument) you will get an overview of the available partitions, each one listed with the device name, partition type, file system type and size.

When you take a look at the interface, you'll notice that it is quite self-explanatory:

When you select a free space region, you can add new partitions by pressing New. cfdisk will ask you what kind of partition you want (primary or logical) and its size after which the partition is added to the overview pane.
When you select a partition entry, you can change the file system type. Just select Type and search for the type you are interested in (probably 82 - Linux swap / Solaris, or 83 - Linux).
Since some BIOSes require the partition that stores the boot loader for the operating system to be marked as bootable, there is also an option of doing so.

You should create your partitions, not forgetting to mark at least one of them for swap usage. Even though swap files are supported by Linux, it is not recommended since they have some impact on the system's performance. A dedicated swap partition performs far better than a swap file.

A frequently asked question is how to partition the disk. There is no satisfying answer to that, and any attempt to obtain one will result in a cataclysmic series of flamewars. So we'll stick with a simple suggestion: it doesn't hurt to use two partitions: one for the entire Linux system and one for the swap space. You'll get to know your own preferences when you are more experienced with Linux.

The make.conf file

Introduction

The information given in this section is not meant to be exhaustive. We provide you with the settings Gentoo supports. If you use different settings we don't say that Gentoo doesn't support it, but it is possible. We list the settings by subarchitecture - a set of machine instructions supported by a range of x86 systems. All subarchitectures are derived from older, compatible subarchitectures. If at any time you are uncertain which one to pick, you should use the oldest subarchitecture. Picking one that is more recent than the one your system supports will result in segmentation faults or internal errors.

The CXXFLAGS setting is never shown, you should set it to the CFLAGS one:

FILE /etc/portage/make.confCFLAGS and CXXFLAGS values

CFLAGS="..."
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

The generic x86 subarchitecture

The next settings work on every x86 system (apart from the i286 and lower):

FILE /etc/portage/make.confArchitecture-related settings

CHOST="i386-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=i386 -O2 -pipe"

The ix86 series

The ix86 series (i486, i586, i686) all refer to Intel- and Intel compatible CPUs. The i586 instruction set is also known as the Pentium and the i686 one as the Pentium Pro, the predecessor of the Pentium MMX.

FILE /etc/portage/make.confPentium-related settings

## (Substitute i486 with i586 or i686 accordingly)
CHOST="i486-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=i486 -O2 -pipe"

You can also substitute the i486 value inside the CFLAGS setting (and not the CHOST one) with pentium or pentium-pro for such systems.

Intel CPUs

Additional support is available for various Intel CPUs, such as pentium-mmx, pentium2 (including Celeron), pentium3, pentium4, and nocona:

FILE /etc/portage/make.confHigher-level pentium settings

## (Substitute the pentium-mmx value in CFLAGS with the value you need)
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=pentium-mmx -O2 -pipe"

AMD CPUs

AMD CPU users can use any of the following settings for -march: athlon-xp, athlon-mp, athlon-tbird, athlon, k6, k6-2, k6-3.

FILE /etc/portage/make.confAMD related settings

## (Substitute the athlon-xp value in CFLAGS with the value you need)
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=athlon-xp -O2 -pipe"

Bootloaders

GRUB

The grub bootloader is a powerful application, able to boot various operating systems, including Microsoft Windows. One of its most powerful features is its ability to understand various file systems, which makes it possible for grub to aide you in your boot setup, especially when there are some issues you need to fix.

For instance, you can browse a file system looking for files, reading different grub configurations, using various Linux kernels, locate files on the system (and view their contents), but also hide partitions, boot from a network using BOOTP (a simple file transfer protocol, very often used to send boot images to various systems), change the partition table, ...

GRUB: configuration

To use grub, you need to install it first (from within the chrooted environment):

root #emerge --ask grub

Next, edit (or create) the /boot/grub/grub.conf file. We'll first give you a simple example of a grub.conf file:

FILE /boot/grub/grub.conf

default 0
timeout 5

title=Gentoo Linux
root (hd0,5)
kernel /kernel-2.6.14-gentoo-r2 root=/dev/sda8

grub always starts counting from zero. For instance, to boot the first entry by default, we state default 0. The other line, timeout 5, tells GRUB to wait 5 seconds before it actually boots the entry pointed to by the default setting.

This is of course not the most difficult part of GRUB. The entries themselves however are. In the given example, there are three commands given to GRUB:

The title entry tells GRUB what to display to the user when he is asked to make his selection.
The root entry informs GRUB where its own files are stored. This is not the Linux root file system (it can be, but this isn't always true). If you have /boot (where GRUB stores its files) as a separate partition, you point this directive to that partition.
The kernel entry is used by GRUB to know what Linux kernel to boot (relative to the file system where root points to) and what boot parameters to add.

Many users often make a mistake when they configure the root parameter. That's mostly because the syntax used by GRUB to identify partitions is different from what they're used to work with. Its syntax is quite simple:

CODE

(hdharddisk-#,partition-#)

The harddisk-# is the hard disk number, starting from 0. If you only have one hard disk, it is 0, regardless of where the disk is at. If you have several disks, start counting from the one which your system checks first. For instance, if you only have IDE disks, your system will probably start with the primary master, then primary slave, then secondary master, ...

The partition-# is the partition number, starting from 0, and uses the same logic used with the partitioning you did earlier. The first four partitions (0-3) are the primary partitions. The logical partitions start from the number 4. So, in the above example, the GRUB files are stored on the second logical partition on the first disk (also known as /dev/sda6).

You'll find more information about GRUB (including nicely commented configuration examples) in the GRUB info pages:

root #info grub

GRUB: installation

You still have to install grub in the MBR (Master Boot Record) though, so that your BIOS is able to find and start it. Otherwise, your system will inform you that no operating system is found...

The recommended method uses grub-install to setup GRUB. Yet this tool relies on some information not present on your system yet: the /etc/mtab file, a cache file which contains information about the mounted file systems. Create one that makes grub-install happy, you only need to enter the file system for your root partition (/) and, if you have one, for your boot partition (/boot):

FILE /etc/mtab

/dev/sda8   /       ext3   rw,noatime   0 0
/dev/sda6   /boot   ext2   rw,noatime   0 0

Then, run grub-install with the device that resembles your first disk that the system will boot. For instance, if that first disk is /dev/sda:

root #grub-install /dev/sda

The grub-install tool will then search through /etc/mtab to find out where the GRUB files are stored and install a minimal boot loader in the MBR whose only job is to find and start the rest of the GRUB files.

If you come to the conclusion that the installation has failed, you can try to perform the grub-install steps manually. Run grub, then enter the configuration commands root (where are the GRUB files located - same as the one in the configuration file grub.conf), setup (where to install GRUB - (hd0) is most likely) and quit (to exit the GRUB installation):

root #grub

grub> root (hd0,5)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit