Boot loaders

The boot loader is responsible for loading the kernel and initial ramdisk before initiating the boot process. You can use different kinds of bootloaders in Arch, such as GRUB(2), Syslinux, LILO or GRUB Legacy.

This page will only contain short introduction and most used configurations users will touch. For detailed information, please see corresponding pages of each boot loader.

Configuration

Configuration files

Different boot loader use different files for configuration. Here is a short list:

• GRUB: /boot/grub/grub.cfg
• GRUB Legacy: /boot/grub/menu.lst
• LILO: /etc/lilo.conf
• Syslinux: /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg

Kernel parameters

Kernel command line parameters are often supplied by the bootloader. Here we are adding the parameters quiet splash to GRUB, GRUB Legacy, LILO and Syslinux.

GRUB

Edit the file /etc/default/grub and append your kernel options to the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="":

/etc/default/grub

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="ro quiet splash"

Re-generate grub.cfg with:

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

The resulting line in /boot/grub/grub.cfg will look like:

/boot/grub/grub.cfg

linux	/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda3 quiet splash

GRUB Legacy

/boot/grub/menu.lst

kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda3 ro quiet splash

LILO

/etc/lilo.conf

image=/boot/vmlinuz-linux
        [...]
        quiet splash

Syslinux

/boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg

APPEND root=UUID=988d4e11-8237-4af3-5ab6-77627128g9d0 ro vga=current quiet splash