What is Digg?43 Comments
- unidentified, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26"5. Profit!"
I wish I made money every time I turned on my computer. - chaosmachine, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20no, this story is actually self aware and has begun to digg itself..
- mDot, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20Have you ever wondered what really happens when you push the "ON" button on your computer and wait until you have to log into your operating system?
I only wonder what I broke when it doesn't work.
Honestly, I don't care what it does; so long as I can log in and go about my business.
1. GRUB picks a distro
2. Linux Kernel is decompressed
3. Linux kernel goes about... Kerneling things up
4. ???
5. Profit! - reedreeder, on 10/12/2007, -4/+20your comment alone has stopped me from digging.
- samdu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11If nothing else (and there's plenty else), Linux does an extremely thourough job of telling you what's going on during the boot process. :)
- Nebetsu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Umm... Who still uses LiLo?
- ajforgue, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"The init process
It's Linux's first process, and parent of all the other processes. This process is the first running process on any Linux/UNIX system, and is started directly by the kernel. It is what loads the rest of the system, and always has a PID of 0"
init is PID 1, not 0. - r121, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Zero-based indexing. Sector 1 is the second sector. What's in sector 0 then?
Either way, great article, I was looking for something like this not long ago. - Stoutlimb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Ok what the hell does "disponible" mean? It does not show up in dictionary.com or wikipedia. I think it's some kind of non-english word, but why is it showing up in an english document?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+11You must have found a way to block all the Apple *****.
- dramatools, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Ok, this is rather dry, but informative. It's not just applicable to Linux, but to most Unix-type operating systems using the System V init system. There are some exceptions-- Slackware and most BSD variants use a simplified system that only consists of single user, multi-user and graphical mode, while Mac OS X adds 'LoginWindow' level processes on top of regular BSD for its desktop subsystem. Regardless of which variant your system uses, the Unix boot process is highly configurable as all these special files are simply shell scripts executed at startup.
- drizek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5wouldnt help much if youre a linux user. You never have to restart.
- opera, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This article sucks. It's filled with errors and it doesn't explain the most important issues. Everyone already knows what's written in the article since they see it when they boot.
The pid of init is never 0 but always 1.
How does lilo and grub read configurations? How do they understand file systems? How do they access the hard drive in the first place (directly or through bios)? etc..
These are the important and rarely explained questions... - tuna1, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7It's a Linux thing.
- n0xie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4... and it's blatant self advertisement for some guys stupid Blog.
It's also most likely just a translation of another article considering the bad english that's used, and it contains numerous errors, which anyone who actually CARES what happens at start up would spot instantly. - JohntB, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It appears to be Spanish and French for "available," which makes sense for the context. What does not make sense is, as you said, why it's in an English-language document, although from reading the rest of the paper, it looks like it was written by someone who's not a native speaker of English.
- playerx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Way too simplistic, if anyone wants to know how things really work down there I'd recommend the book 'Understanding the Linux Kernel', which explains not only the boot process but memory and process management. It's not only a book for those interested in Linux, it's a book for those interested in Operating Systems design and architecture.
- Ensnared, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4"runlevel = execution level"
They're called "runlevels", and have been so for decades. You'll do yourself a favour if you stick with established terminology when writing things like this. - cesclaveria, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2At least in Spanish means "Available"
Edit: JohntB beat me to it :P - 4answer2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Isn't the master boot record located at cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1?
- Ensnared, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3So... runlevels got renamed, huh? It's "execution levels" now, is it? I must've missed a memo.
- VorpalK, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"UNIX was derived from AT&T's "Sys V" (System 5)."
No...Sys V is one particular branch of UNIX lineage. BSD would be the other major branch. There's lots of them. I have a chart that I printed from a website documenting the history of UNIX. Wraps clear around the inside of my office one and a half times...
Not terribly accurate in the first paragraph. Otherwise a pretty good overview I suppose. - seventoes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"Why was cruocitae's comment so bad? He just wants you to digg his story, and you probably will if it's interesting..."
Ok... we know that he dugg it, thats why his name is at the fking bottom of the page... he doesnt need to announce it to us. - burke, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think one of CHS starts at 1 for some reason. I could be wrong entirely, but that would explain the 1.
- 4answer2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Sector numbering (for some reason) starts at number 1, not 0.
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/4269/1/ - pixelbeat_, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've got a very similar older article here:
http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/disk/ - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I think you misspelled "Apple" as "Linux."
- magila, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Do modern BIOSs actualy still use CHS addressing mode? I'd think by now they would have all switched to LBA as the default.
- tehmoth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1BSD variants aren't members of "most Unix-type operating systems using the System V init system." so they can't be exceptions.
- Phantom784, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1I think the point of using Lilo for the example was to avoid explaining Grub's stages. But considering how common Grub is, that would have been good to mention in the article.
- thushan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2...and Microsoft Windows Internals by WinInternals (4th Edition):
http://www.sysinternals.com/WindowsInternals.html
I'm eagerly awaiting the 5th edition that goes into the Vista internals... - cruocitae, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Maybe who wants to understand deeply what's really going on will read a whole book, but who needs a brief explanation will NOT.
- sholdowa, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0.. and what about the initrd mechanism, runlevels 7 and 8, ...? This article describes what you see ( and not too generically ), but doesn't *explain* much.
- shakeyshakey, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2This Linux thing is getting tiresome
- cruocitae, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0sorry for the mistake
- DoctorShim, on 10/12/2007, -6/+3Why was cruocitae's comment so bad? He just wants you to digg his story, and you probably will if it's interesting...
- cruocitae, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0runlevel = execution level
both can be used. - cruocitae, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0lol, try emailing some GNU guys..
- cruocitae, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1guess!
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+2People actually digg this?
- WraithFX, on 10/12/2007, -33/+5Yawn.. How many linux stories can we put out? I use linux all the time and I'm getting tired of it.
- cruocitae, on 10/12/2007, -67/+3Diggy diggy diggy.. digg my story! :+)
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