The loadlin Loader
Another way of booting Linux is by using loadlin, an MS-DOS program that can load a Linux kernel. To load Linux, loadlin relies on MS-DOS rather than your system’s BIOS; therefore, loadlin can load a kernel stored beyond cylinder 1023. More generally, it can load a kernel from any filesystem or location accessible to MS-DOS.
However, loadlin cannot be run from a DOS Prompt Window within Windows 3.x or 9x. You must start your system in MS-DOS mode in order for loadlin to work. By making the proper entries to your config.sys
file, you can create a convenient boot menu that lets you boot MS-DOS, Windows, or Linux.
Installing loadlin
The loadlin program is found in the
/dosutils
directory of the Red Hat Linux
CD-ROM. The loadlin program must have access to the
file containing the Linux kernel you want to boot. The easiest way to
get this file onto your Windows system is to boot Linux, make sure the
Windows filesystem that corresponds to the Windows C: drive is
mounted, and copy the kernel file. The following commands assume
that your Windows filesystem is mounted as
/mnt/c
and that you want to store the kernel in
the directory c:\linux
.
mkdir /mnt/c/linux cp /boot/vmlinuz /mnt/c/linux/vmlinuz
The loadlin program needs to know the identity of your Linux root partition. To learn the name of the root partition, issue the command:
mount
The command reports all the mounted devices:
/dev/hda2 on / type ext2 (rw) none on /proc type proc (rw) /dev/hda1 on /boot type ext2 (ro) none ...
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