Beginner's QuickStart guide to Choose-OS
For Linux newbies or any1 new to Choose-OS all the Choose-OS configuration
options may seem like a jungle :). The purpose of this document is to tell
how to create the very simplest configuration file/bootup menu.
Here's the simple configuration file first. Below we will discuss what
the things here do...
banner=What do we want to do today?
install=/dev/hda
linux "Linux" {
image=/boot/vmlinuz
cmdline= vga=EXTENDED
}
bootsect "DOS" {
image=/dev/hda1
}
That was it. Not that complex, eh?
Now, let's take a look what all those lines do.
- banner=What do we want to do today?
- This sets banner to "What do we want to do today?". Banner is the
message shown above the menu of all the images. This is optional,
but you might prefer something custom instead of "Choose-OS 0.8 Bootup Menu" :)
- install=/dev/hda
- This option is required and is used to tell Choose-OS where to install its
bootsector. Normally this is '/dev/hda', in which case Choose-OS will
normally be the first thing to be run after BIOS finishes.
- linux "Linux" {
- Start defining a Linux kernel image. String in quotes is the name for
the image in the bootup menu.
- image=/boot/vmlinuz
- vmlinuz - arent kernels named that?. This option tells the file the kernel is.
- cmdline= vga=EXTENDED
- This option is used to set Linux command line. It isn't necessary,
but is used to tell Linux about stuff. This example sets up
80x50 video mode (80x25 sucks so much that every Linux distribution should
automagically default to 80x50, which is the ultimate text mode).
- }
- The character '}' ends an image definition.
- bootsect "DOS" {
- Start defining a DOS bootsector. String in quotes is the name for
the image in the bootup menu.
- image=/dev/hda1
- This tells chos the bootsector to boot. In our example /dev/hda1, 'C:' under DOS.
- }
Now you should be able to create yourself a simple Choose-OS configuration without
any extra coolness.