Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Chapter 4. Boot Methods

This chapter describes techniques for booting your Linux system. Depending on your hardware and whether you want to run any other operating systems, you can configure the system to automatically boot Linux or to provide a choice between several operating systems. Choosing between operating systems is generally referred to as dual booting, although you can select between more than two. We talk more about dual booting in the section Dual-Booting Linux and Windows 2000/XP/Vista in Dual-Booting Linux and Windows 2000/XP/Vista.

An alternative to dual booting is virtualization, where you run one or more virtual operating systems inside a real operating system. The real system is known as the host, and the virtual systems are known as guests. Virtualization makes it easy to switch between systems without having to reboot. Two ways to run virtual systems are to make Linux the host system with another operating system running in a virtual machine. See Chapter 15 for an overview of virtualization concepts and for information on how to run guest systems under Linux. You can also run Linux as a guest with another operating system such as Windows as the host. Two ways to do this are with Microsoft’s Virtual PC and VMware server. Both are free downloads and are available at www.microsoft.com and www.vmware.com, respectively.

Once your Linux system is installed, rebooting the system is generally straightforward. There are several possibilities for configuring your boot process. ...