1 Boot Process:

2
3 1) BIOS: Basic input/output system (This is the first step)
4 - Initializes the hardware including screen, keyboard and also tests the main
memory (Power on Self Test POST)
5 - BIOS software is store on ROM a on the motherboard.
6 - After this, the remainder of the boot process is completely controlled by
Operating system
7
8 Boot Loader:
9 After POST the, the system control passes from BIOS to boot loader
10 It is usually stored on one of the hard drives in the boot sector (for BIOS/MBR
systems) or the EFI partition (for(Unified) Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI/UEFI)
systems)
11
12 - The most common boot loaders for linux are GRUB (GRand Unified Boot Loader) and
ISOLinux (For booting using removable media)
13 - Boot Loader is responsible for loading the kernel image and the initial RAM disk
(which contains some critical files and device drivers need to start the system)
into memory
14
15 Boot loader is two stages
16 1) First Stage
17 - For systems using BIOS/MBR, the boot loader resides in the first sector of the
hard disk. Size is 512 bytes. In this stage it examines the partition and finds a
bootable partition. Once it finds the bootable partition it then searches for the
2nd stage boot loader e.g. GRUB and loads it into RAM
18 - For systems using EFI/UEFI method, UEFI firmware reads its boot manager data to
determine which UEFI application is to be launched and from which partition. The
firmware then launches the application
19 2) Second stage
20 - The second stage resides under /boot. It displays a flash screen and allows us to
choose the OS to boot. It then loads the selected OS kernel into RAM and passes the
control to it.
21
22 Boot loader loads the kernel and initial RAM based file systems (initramfs) into the
RAM
23 - Once the kernel is loaded into the memory it initializes and configures the
memory and also the hardware attached to the computer. (includes processor, IO,
storage units etc)
24 - Initramfs contains the program and binary files to mount proper root filesystem,
like providing kernel functionality for the needed filesystem and device drivers
for mass storage controllers with the facilty called udev (user device) (it figures
out the connected devices and the located the drivers and loads them)
25 Mount program instucts OS that a filesystem is ready to use. If this is successful
then the initramfs is cleared from the RAM and the init program from root
filesystem /sbin/init is executed. Init handles mounting and pivoting over the
final real root filesystem
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27 When the kernel runs the init program then it becomes the first process which then
kicks of other processes to get the system runnning. Inti is responsible for
keeping the system running and shutting it down cleanly.
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29 Text mode login
30 Near the end of boot process init starts number of test mode login prompts (done by
program called getty) . This propts to type username and password and eventually to
get to command shell
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32
33 Default command shell is bash (Bourne again shell)
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35 X Windows System
36 In a Linux desktop system X windows system is loaded as final step of boot process
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38 A service called display manager keeps track of all display being provided and
loads the x-server. It also manages graphical logins
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40 In desktop environment
41 Session manager + Windows manager + a set of utilities used together as a unit
 provide seamless desktop environment
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43 By runnning startx from the command line we can start display manager
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