Boot directly from bzImage kernel image

[probe]

Hi,

Before few months I succeed to do this, but I didn't write down
how I did it [won't happen again ].

So the problem is how to boot directly from kernel image file bzImage, without
initrd and vmlinuz file.

I know that one part of the problem is to enable drivers for hard disk drive
directly into kernel. But another part of the problem is text in menu.lst file,
which should direct you straight to bzImage file, which is copied into /boot
folder.

Any help ??

thanks

[hazel]

You need to have a "stanza" in menu.lst specifying your new kernel.title. For example, here is one that I use:

	
title         Experimental Debian kernel
root		(hd0,3)
kernel		/boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda4 quiet
savedefault
boot

The "root" line gives GRUB's root, i.e. the partition where menu.lst and the other grub files are. The "kernel" line gives the location of your bzImage and the linux root partition corresponding to it.

[probe]

Thanks,

this looks exactly like the code in menu.lst I used before few months.
I will just include drivers for HD in block devices and rebuild
kernel and it should work,

thanks again !

[cincridul]

Thanks,

this looks exactly like the code in menu.lst I used before few months.
I will just include drivers for HD in block devices and rebuild
kernel and it should work,

thanks again !

Now I understood the problem that you discussed here. It is helpful for me and everybody. I look forward to contributing your idea.

[probe]

Hey cincridul,

No problem, thanks. And it is not idea, it works. After you do 'make'
on new kernel, just copy arch/i386/boot/bzImage to /boot/ directory,
and that's it.

And set menu.lst like hazel posted. I think you need to build in your
kernel [directly not as module] hard drive drivers for your
HD (under block devices) and filesystem drivers, and that is all kernel
needs to boot straight just from image,



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[hazel]

Yes, you need to build in the driver for your hard drive (IDE or SATA), for the filesystem on it (e.g. ext3) and for the chipset of your drive controller (as reported by the kernel at boot time). For example, I have an Intel motherboard and the kernel reports piix as my disk driver chipset, so I need to have the PIIX_IDE option enabled. Actually most stock kernels have all possible chipsets enabled by default.

You also need to run "make modules_install" before rebooting because some of your initialisation scripts will need to load modules corresponding to your new kernel.