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Chapter 1, Booting Linux
#3 Bypass the Boot Manager
HACK
Bypassing the Installer
The key to restoring your sanity when confronted with a broken kernel is to
use the installation disk you used to install Linux on your computer in the
first place. Every installation disk boots a generic kernel from the CD-ROM
to perform the installation routine. Many of the install disks for distribu-
tions such as Debian, Ubuntu, Mandrake, Red Hat, and others include a
slim-line shell called BusyBox that you can use to sneak behind the installer
and fix your system.
When you run the CD-ROM-based installation program, nothing on your
hard disk is affected until you get to the partitioning part of the program.
Just before this section, jump to another virtual terminal by pressing Ctrl-
Alt-F(n) (such as Ctrl-Alt-F2). If you are installing Linux on a Mac, this can
be a little trickier, because you need to press the Apple Option Key-F(n)-
F(n). These key combinations switch you to a blank screen where you see a
root shell. This shell is a substantially cut-down version of a normal shell,
but it has the essential commands to navigate directories, mount disks, and
use an editor to change files.
Mounting Disks
Before you can fix the bootloader, you need to identify the problem that is
preventing your system from booting. In many cases, the problem occurs
because the kernel files in /boot do not have the same name/location ...