CODEWITHSUNDEEP
operating-systemboot
Nishant
Nishant

Reputation: 21914

What happens when you boot the computer from a Unix perspective?

Can anyone tell me how do I understand what happens when you boot up a Unix system? Like "BIOS" is loaded, it does a peripheral test etc until you get a shell?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1397

Answers (3)

Julien Vermillard
Julien Vermillard

Reputation: 3023

For each unix it's different but for linux, from bios you go the bootloader (u-boot, lilo, grub..) then the kernel decompress itself, start himself and call init once booted.

This article explain well the process : http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linuxboot/

Upvotes: 3

AbiusX
AbiusX

Reputation: 2404

To make it easier, BIOS checks for bootable devices in order defined, The first one that is found, First sector is copied to the memory. The code at the memory position 0800 hex is then set to the Program Counter register and execution is delivered to the bootable media.

Upvotes: 0

Joost Diepenmaat
Joost Diepenmaat

Reputation: 17773

It depends on the system, but in general, you want to start with a look at the init process: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Init

I also recommend "Advanced Programming In the UNIX Environment" (I think in 3rd edition right now) which goes into much detail on this and many questions like it.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions