Operation Manual

Boot Options
Unlike the graphical interface,the different boot options cannot be selectedusing
the cursorkeys of your keyboard. The boot menu of the text mode boot screen
offerssome keywords to enterat the boot prompt. Thesekeywords map to the
options offered in the graphical version.Enter your choice and hit[
Enter
] to launch
the boot process.
Custom Boot Options
After selectinga boot option, enterthe appropriatekeyword at the boot prompt
or enter some custom boot options as describedin Section “Fails to Boot”
(page 89). To launch the installationprocess,press[
Enter
].
Screen Resolutions
Use the F keys to determine the screen resolutionfor installation.If you need to
boot in text mode,choose[
F3
].
A.2.3 Boot Problems
Boot problems are situationswhen your systemdoes not boot properly (does not
boot to the expectedrunlevel and login screen).
Fails to Load theGRUB Boot Loader
If the hardware is functioningproperly,it is possiblethat the boot loader is corrupted
and Linux cannot start on the machine.In this case,it is necessaryto repair the boot
loader. To do so, you need start the RescueSystem as describedin Section A.2.7,
“Recoveringa Corrupted System” (page 106) and follow the instructionsat Section
“Modifying and Reinstalling the Boot Loader ” (page 109).
Other reasonsfor the machinenot booting may be BIOS-related:
BIOS Settings
Check your BIOS for referencesto your hard drive. GRUB may simply not be
startedif the hard drive itselfcannotbe found with the current BIOS settings.
BIOS Boot Order
Check whetheryour system'sboot order includes the hard disk. If the hard disk
option was not enabled,your systemmay install properly,but fails to boot when
accessto the hard disk is required.
No Graphical Login
If the machine comesup, but does not boot into the graphical login manager,antic-
ipate problems either with the choice of the default runlevel or the configurationof
the X Window System.To checkthe runlevel configuration, log in as the
root
user
and check whetherthe machine is configured to boot into runlevel 5 (graphical
desktop).A quick way to check this is to examine the contentsof
/etc/inittab
,as
follows:
tux@mercury:~> grep "id:" /etc/inittab
id:5:initdefault:
Helpand Troubleshooting 93