Making your Choice Introduction

Now that your kernel is configured and compiled and the necessary system configuration files are filled in correctly, it is time to install a program that will fire up your kernel when you start the system. Such a program is called a bootloader.

Several bootloaders exist for Linux/Alpha. You must choose one of the supported bootloaders, not all. You have the choice between aBoot and MILO.

Default: Using aboot

We first install aboot on our system. Of course we use emerge to do so: 

# emerge --usepkg aboot

The next step is to make our bootdisk bootable. This will start aboot when you boot your system. We make our bootdisk bootable by writing the aboot bootloader to the start of the disk. 

# swriteboot -f3 /dev/sda /boot/bootlx 
# abootconf /dev/sda 2
If you use a different partitioning scheme than the one we use throughout this chapter, you have to change the commands accordingly. Please read the appropriate manual pages (man 8 swriteboot and man 8 abootconf).

Additionally, you can make Gentoo boot more easily by setting up the aboot configuration file and SRM boot_osflags variable. You will need to make sure that the bootdef_dev is also properly set (easier to do at the console than from Linux). 

# echo '0:2/boot/vmlinux.gz root=/dev/sda2' > /etc/aboot.conf
# echo -n 0 > /proc/srm_environment/named_variables/boot_osflags
# echo -n '' > /proc/srm_environment/named_variables/boot_file

If you're installing using a serial console, don't forget to include the serial console boot flag in aboot.conf. See /etc/aboot.conf.example for some further information.

Aboot is now configured and ready to use. Continue with Installing Necessary System Tools.

Alternative: Using MILO MILO can only be used with alpha-based systems!

Before continuing, you should decide on how to use MILO. In this section, we will assume that you want to make a MILO boot floppy. If you are going to boot from an MS-DOS partition on your hard disk, you should amend the commands appropriately.

To install MILO, we use emerge. 

# emerge --usepkg milo

After MILO has been installed, the MILO images should be in /opt/milo. The commands below make a bootfloppy for use with MILO. Remember to use the correct image for your Alpha-system. 

(First insert a blank floppy)
# fdformat /dev/fd0
# mformat a:
# mcopy /opt/milo/milo-2.2-18-gentoo-ruffian a:\milo
# mcopy /opt/milo/linload.exe a:\lilnload.exe
(Only if you have a Ruffian:     
  # mcopy /opt/milo/ldmilo.exe a:\ldmilo.exe
)
# echo -ne '\125\252' | dd of=/dev/fd0 bs=1 seek=510 count=2

Your MILO boot floppy is now ready to boot Gentoo Linux. You may need to set environment variables in your ARCS Firmware to get MILO to start; this is all explained in the MILO-HOWTO with some examples on common systems, and examples of the commands to use in interactive mode.

Not reading the MILO-HOWTO is a bad idea.

Now continue with Installing Necessary System Tools.