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Extended help at bootup

September 19, 2010 — BarryK
I posted about this earlier:

http://bkhome.org/archive/blog2/201009/extended-help-at-boot.html

Here are the two help pages.

The basic help:
acpi=off     Default on for PCs >2001, may give bootshutdown probs.

pfix=ram Run totally in RAM ignore saved sessions,
pfix=<n> number of saved sessions to ignore (multisession-CD),
pfix=nox commandline only, do not start X,
pfix=noram do not copy .sfs files to RAM (faster boot, slower running),
pfix=fsck do filesystem check on DISTRO_FILE_PREFIXsave (and host partition),
pfix=clean file cleanup (simulate version upgrade),
pfix=purge more radical file cleanup (to fix broken system).
pkeys=<xx> Keyboard layout, choices: azerty be-latin1 br-abnt2 br-abnt
br-latin1-abnt2 br-latin1-us by cf croat cz de de-latin1 dk dvorak dvorak-l
dvorak-r es et fi fr gr hu101 hu il it jp106 lt mk nl no pl pt-latin1 ro ru
se sg sk-qwerty sk-qwertz slovene sv-latin1 uk us wangbe


The advanced help:
The following are mostly in GRUB/Syslinux setup for installed Puppy. Puppy finds

files automatically at bootup but these can help the init script. Examples
pdev1=sdc1 The boot partition.
psubdir=puppies/wary501 Path in which Puppy is installed.
psavemark=2 Partition no. (in boot drive) to save session to.
pmedia=usbflash Type of media booting from. Choose one of these
usbflash usbhd usbcd ataflash atahd atacd atazip scsihd scsicd cd
pupsfs=sdc1:/puppies/wary501/puppy.sfs Override auto search.
zdrv=sdc1:/puppies/wary501/zdrv.sfs Override auto search.

The following are for debugging, for experts only
loglevel=<n> Bootup verbosity. 7 is high verbosity for debugging.
pfix=rdsh Execute init then dropout to prompt in initramfs.
pfix=rdsh0 Dropout early, before loading kernel drivers.
pfix=rdsh6 Dropout just before mount layered filesystem.

More help here http//kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt


The above has some substitutions made by Woof at build, such as the 'DISTRO_FILE_PREFIX' string. Also there is color coding of some text.

Comments

pfix=nocopy
Username: BarryK
I have changed "pfix=noram" to "pfix=nocopy". "noram" is confusing, as already have "pfix=ram" which means something very different.

pmedia=satahd
Username: Terryphi
"I have been using pmedia=satahd in my menu.lst for frugal installs. Why is the option shown as atahd? On an old laptop I have been using pmedia=idehd . Is this no longer supported?

satahd, idehd
Username: BarryK
"You can use them, but internally (in the init script) they will get changed to 'atahd'.

pfix=copy
Username: BarryK
"I decided to also have "pfix=copy", for the situation where you do definitely want to copy the .sfs's to RAM.

pfix=ram
Username: drongo
"I use pfix=ram sometimes. The screen still says it's looking for saved sessions even though it isn't. (I assume it isn't because it doesn't present a list of sessions to choose from.) Only a very minor annoyance, which is why I haven't mentioned it until now.


Tags: woof