bootparam — Introduction to boot time parameters of the Linux kernel
The Linux kernel accepts certain 'command-line options' or 'boot time parameters' at the moment it is started. In general this is used to supply the kernel with information about hardware parameters that the kernel would not be able to determine on its own, or to avoid/override the values that the kernel would otherwise detect.
When the kernel is booted directly by the BIOS (say from a floppy to which you copied a kernel using 'cp zImage /dev/fd0'), you have no opportunity to specify any parameters. So, in order to take advantage of this possibility you have to use software that is able to pass parameters, like LILO or loadlin. For a few parameters one can also modify the kernel image itself, using rdev, see rdev(8) for further details.
The LILO program (LInux LOader) written by Werner Almesberger is the most commonly used. It has the ability to boot various kernels, and stores the configuration information in a plain text file. (See lilo(8) and lilo.conf(5).) LILO can boot DOS, OS/2, Linux, FreeBSD, UnixWare, etc., and is quite flexible.
The other commonly used Linux loader is 'LoadLin' which is a DOS program that has the capability to launch a Linux kernel from the DOS prompt (with boot-args) assuming that certain resources are available. This is good for people that want to launch Linux from DOS.
It is also very useful if you have certain hardware which relies on the supplied DOS driver to put the hardware into a known state. A common example is 'SoundBlaster Compatible' sound cards that require the DOS driver to twiddle a few mystical registers to put the card into a SB compatible mode. Booting DOS with the supplied driver, and then loading Linux from the DOS prompt with loadlin avoids the reset of the card that happens if one rebooted instead.
The kernel command line is parsed into a list of strings (boot arguments) separated by spaces. Most of the boot args take the form of:
name[=value_1][,value_2]...[,value_10]
where 'name' is a unique keyword that is used to identify what part of the kernel the associated values (if any) are to be given to. Note the limit of 10 is real, as the present code only handles 10 comma separated parameters per keyword. (However, you can reuse the same keyword with up to an additional 10 parameters in unusually complicated situations, assuming the setup function supports it.)
Most of the sorting goes on in linux/init/main.c. First, the kernel checks to see if the argument is any of the special arguments 'root=', 'nfsroot=', 'nfsaddrs=', 'ro', 'rw', 'debug' or 'init'. The meaning of these special arguments is described below.
Then it walks a list of setup functions (contained in the bootsetups array) to see if the specified argument string (such as 'foo') has been associated with a setup function ('foo_setup()') for a particular device or part of the kernel. If you passed the kernel the line foo=3,4,5,6 then the kernel would search the bootsetups array to see if 'foo' was registered. If it was, then it would call the setup function associated with 'foo' (foo_setup()) and hand it the arguments 3, 4, 5 and 6 as given on the kernel command line.
Anything of the form 'foo=bar' that is not accepted as a setup function as described above is then interpreted as an environment variable to be set. A (useless?) example would be to use 'TERM=vt100' as a boot argument.
Any remaining arguments that were not picked up by the kernel and were not interpreted as environment variables are then passed onto process one, which is usually the init program. The most common argument that is passed to the init process is the word 'single' which instructs init to boot the computer in single user mode, and not launch all the usual daemons. Check the manual page for the version of init installed on your system to see what arguments it accepts.
This sets the initial command to be executed by
the kernel. If this is not set, or cannot be found,
the kernel will try /sbin/init, then /etc/init, then /bin/init, then /bin/sh and panic if all of this
fails.
This sets the nfs boot address to the given string. This boot address is used in case of a net boot.
This sets the nfs root name to the given string. If this string does not begin with '/' or ',' or a digit, then it is prefixed by '/tftpboot/'. This root name is used in case of a net boot.
(Only when CONFIG_BUGi386 is
defined.) Some i387 coprocessor chips have bugs that
show up when used in 32 bit protected mode. For
example, some of the early ULSI-387 chips would cause
solid lockups while performing floating-point
calculations. Using the 'no387' boot arg causes Linux
to ignore the maths coprocessor even if you have one.
Of course you must then have your kernel compiled
with math emulation support!
(Only when CONFIG_BUGi386 is
defined.) Some of the early i486DX-100 chips have a
problem with the 'hlt' instruction, in that they
can't reliably return to operating mode after this
instruction is used. Using the 'no-hlt' instruction
tells Linux to just run an infinite loop when there
is nothing else to do, and to not halt the CPU. This
allows people with these broken chips to use
Linux.
This argument tells the kernel what device is to be used as the root file system while booting. The default of this setting is determined at compile time, and usually is the value of the root device of the system that the kernel was built on. To override this value, and select the second floppy drive as the root device, one would use 'root=/dev/fd1'. (The root device can also be set using rdev(8).)
The root device can be specified symbolically or numerically. A symbolic specification has the form /dev/XXYN, where XX designates the device type ('hd' for ST-506 compatible hard disk, with Y in 'a'-'d'; 'sd' for SCSI compatible disk, with Y in 'a'-'e'; 'ad' for Atari ACSI disk, with Y in 'a'-'e', 'ez' for a Syquest EZ135 parallel port removable drive, with Y='a', 'xd' for XT compatible disk, with Y either 'a' or 'b'; 'fd' for floppy disk, with Y the floppy drive number — fd0 would be the DOS 'A:' drive, and fd1 would be 'B:'), Y the driver letter or number, and N the number (in decimal) of the partition on this device (absent in the case of floppies). Recent kernels allow many other types, mostly for CD-ROMs: nfs, ram, scd, mcd, cdu535, aztcd, cm206cd, gscd, sbpcd, sonycd, bpcd. (The type nfs specifies a net boot; ram refers to a ram disk.)
Note that this has nothing to do with the designation of these devices on your file system. The '/dev/' part is purely conventional.
The more awkward and less portable numeric specification of the above possible root devices in major/minor format is also accepted. (E.g., /dev/sda3 is major 8, minor 3, so you could use 'root=0x803' as an alternative.)
'ro' and 'rw'The 'ro' option tells the kernel to mount the root file system as 'read-only' so that file system consistency check programs (fsck) can do their work on a quiescent file system. No processes can write to files on the file system in question until it is 'remounted' as read/write capable, for example, by 'mount −w −n −o remount /'. (See also mount(8).)
The 'rw' option tells the kernel to mount the root file system read/write. This is the default.
The choice between read-only and read/write can also be set using rdev(8).
This is used to protect I/O port regions from probes. The form of the command is:
reserve=iobase,extent[,iobase,extent]...
In some machines it may be necessary to prevent device drivers from checking for devices (auto-probing) in a specific region. This may be because of hardware that reacts badly to the probing, or hardware that would be mistakenly identified, or merely hardware you don't want the kernel to initialize.
The reserve boot-time argument specifies an I/O port region that shouldn't be probed. A device driver will not probe a reserved region, unless another boot argument explicitly specifies that it do so.
For example, the boot line
reserve=0x300,32 blah=0x300
keeps all device drivers except the driver for 'blah' from probing 0x300−0x31f.
The BIOS call defined in the PC specification that returns the amount of installed memory was only designed to be able to report up to 64MB. Linux uses this BIOS call at boot to determine how much memory is installed. If you have more than 64MB of RAM installed, you can use this boot arg to tell Linux how much memory you have. The value is in decimal or hexadecimal (prefix 0x), and the suffixes 'k' (times 1024) or 'M' (times 1048576) can be used. Here is a quote from Linus on usage of the 'mem=' parameter.
The kernel will accept any 'mem=xx' parameter you give it, and if it turns out that you lied to it, it will crash horribly sooner or later. The parameter indicates the highest addressable RAM address, so 'mem=0x1000000' means you have 16MB of memory, for example. For a 96MB machine this would be 'mem=0x6000000'.
NOTE NOTE NOTE: some machines might use the top of memory for BIOS caching or whatever, so you might not actually have up to the full 96MB addressable. The reverse is also true: some chipsets will map the physical memory that is covered by the BIOS area into the area just past the top of memory, so the top-of-mem might actually be 96MB + 384kB for example. If you tell linux that it has more memory than it actually does have, bad things will happen: maybe not at once, but surely eventually.
You can also use the boot argument 'mem=nopentium' to turn off 4 MB page tables on kernels configured for IA32 systems with a pentium or newer CPU.
By default the kernel will not reboot after a panic, but this option will cause a kernel reboot after N seconds (if N is greater than zero). This panic timeout can also be set by "echo N > /proc/sys/kernel/panic".
(Only when CONFIG_BUGi386 is
defined.) Since 2.0.22 a reboot is by default a cold
reboot. One asks for the old default with
'reboot=warm'. (A cold reboot may be required to
reset certain hardware, but might destroy not yet
written data in a disk cache. A warm reboot may be
faster.) By default a reboot is hard, by asking the
keyboard controller to pulse the reset line low, but
there is at least one type of motherboard where that
doesn't work. The option 'reboot=bios' will instead
jump through the BIOS.
'nosmp' and 'maxcpus=N'(Only when __SMP__ is defined.) A command-line option of 'nosmp' or 'maxcpus=0' will disable SMP activation entirely; an option 'maxcpus=N' limits the maximum number of CPUs activated in SMP mode to N.
Kernel messages are handed off to the kernel log
daemon klogd so that they may be logged to disk.
Messages with a priority above console_loglevel are
also printed on the console. (For these levels, see
<linux/kernel.h> By default this variable is set
to log anything more important than debug messages.
This boot argument will cause the kernel to also
print the messages of DEBUG priority. The console
loglevel can also be set at run time via an option to
klogd. See klogd(8).
It is possible to enable a kernel profiling
function, if one wishes to find out where the kernel
is spending its CPU cycles. Profiling is enabled by
setting the variable prof_shift to a
nonzero value. This is done either by specifying
CONFIG_PROFILE at
compile time, or by giving the 'profile=' option. Now
the value that prof_shift gets will
be N, when given, or CONFIG_PROFILE_SHIFT, when that is
given, or 2, the default. The significance of this
variable is that it gives the granularity of the
profiling: each clock tick, if the system was
executing kernel code, a counter is incremented:
profile[address >> prof_shift]++;
The raw profiling information can be read from
/proc/profile. Probably
you'll want to use a tool such as readprofile.c to
digest it. Writing to /proc/profile will clear the
counters.
Set the eight parameters max_page_age, page_advance, page_decline, page_initial_age, age_cluster_fract, age_cluster_min, pageout_weight, bufferout_weight that control the kernel swap algorithm. For kernel tuners only.
Set the six parameters max_buff_age, buff_advance, buff_decline, buff_initial_age, bufferout_weight, buffermem_grace that control kernel buffer memory management. For kernel tuners only.
(Only if the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM.) In general it is a
bad idea to use a ramdisk under Linux — the system
will use available memory more efficiently itself. But
while booting (or while constructing boot floppies) it is
often useful to load the floppy contents into a ramdisk.
One might also have a system in which first some modules
(for file system or hardware) must be loaded before the
main disk can be accessed.
In Linux 1.3.48, ramdisk handling was changed
drastically. Earlier, the memory was allocated statically,
and there was a 'ramdisk=N' parameter to tell its size.
(This could also be set in the kernel image at compile
time, or by use of rdev(8).) These days ram
disks use the buffer cache, and grow dynamically. For a lot
of information (e.g., how to use rdev(8) in conjunction
with the new ramdisk setup), see /usr/src/linux/Documentation/ramdisk.txt.
There are four parameters, two boolean and two integral.
If N=1, do load a ramdisk. If N=0, do not load a ramdisk. (This is the default.)
If N=1, do prompt for insertion of the floppy. (This is the default.) If N=0, do not prompt. (Thus, this parameter is never needed.)
'ramdisk_size=N' or
(obsolete) 'ramdisk=N'Set the maximal size of the ramdisk(s) to N kB. The default is 4096 (4 MB).
Sets the starting block number (the offset on the floppy where the ramdisk starts) to N. This is needed in case the ramdisk follows a kernel image.
(Only if the kernel was compiled with CONFIG_BLK_DEV_RAM and CONFIG_BLK_DEV_INITRD.) These days
it is possible to compile the kernel to use initrd.
When this feature is enabled, the boot process will
load the kernel and an initial ramdisk; then the
kernel converts initrd into a "normal" ramdisk, which
is mounted read-write as root device; then /linuxrc
is executed; afterwards the "real" root file system
is mounted, and the initrd file system is moved over
to /initrd; finally the usual boot sequence (e.g.,
invocation of /sbin/init) is performed.
For a detailed description of the initrd feature,
see /usr/src/linux/Documentation/initrd.txt.
The 'noinitrd' option tells the kernel that
although it was compiled for operation with initrd,
it should not go through the above steps, but leave
the initrd data under /dev/initrd. (This device can be
used only once: the data is freed as soon as the last
process that used it has closed /dev/initrd.)
General notation for this section:
iobase -- the
first I/O port that the SCSI host occupies. These are
specified in hexadecimal notation, and usually lie in the
range from 0x200 to 0x3ff.
irq -- the
hardware interrupt that the card is configured to use.
Valid values will be dependent on the card in question, but
will usually be 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 15. The other
values are usually used for common peripherals like IDE
hard disks, floppies, serial ports, etc.
scsi-id -- the
ID that the host adapter uses to identify itself on the
SCSI bus. Only some host adapters allow you to change this
value, as most have it permanently specified internally.
The usual default value is 7, but the Seagate and Future
Domain TMC-950 boards use 6.
parity --
whether the SCSI host adapter expects the attached devices
to supply a parity value with all information exchanges.
Specifying a one indicates parity checking is enabled, and
a zero disables parity checking. Again, not all adapters
will support selection of parity behavior as a boot
argument.
A SCSI device can have a number of 'subdevices' contained within itself. The most common example is one of the new SCSI CD-ROMs that handle more than one disk at a time. Each CD is addressed as a 'Logical Unit Number' (LUN) of that particular device. But most devices, such as hard disks, tape drives and such are only one device, and will be assigned to LUN zero.
Some poorly designed SCSI devices cannot handle
being probed for LUNs not equal to zero. Therefore,
if the compile-time flag CONFIG_SCSI_MULTI_LUN is not set,
newer kernels will by default only probe LUN
zero.
To specify the number of probed LUNs at boot, one enters 'max_scsi_luns=n' as a boot arg, where n is a number between one and eight. To avoid problems as described above, one would use n=1 to avoid upsetting such broken devices.
Some boot time configuration of the SCSI tape driver can be achieved by using the following:
st=buf_size[,write_threshold[,max_bufs]]
The first two numbers are specified in units of
kB. The default buf_size is 32kB, and
the maximum size that can be specified is a
ridiculous 16384kB. The write_threshold is
the value at which the buffer is committed to tape,
with a default value of 30kB. The maximum number of
buffers varies with the number of drives detected,
and has a default of two. An example usage would
be:
st=32,30,2
Full details can be found in the file Documentation/scsi/st.txt (or
drivers/scsi/README.st
for older kernels) in the kernel source.
The aha numbers refer to cards and the aic numbers refer to the actual SCSI chip on these type of cards, including the Soundblaster-16 SCSI.
The probe code for these SCSI hosts looks for an installed BIOS, and if none is present, the probe will not find your card. Then you will have to use a boot arg of the form:
aha152x=iobase[,irq[,scsi-id[,reconnect[,parity]]]]
If the driver was compiled with debugging enabled, a sixth value can be specified to set the debug level.
All the parameters are as described at the top of
this section, and the reconnect value will
allow device disconnect/reconnect if a nonzero value
is used. An example usage is as follows:
aha152x=0x340,11,7,1
Note that the parameters must be specified in order, meaning that if you want to specify a parity setting, then you will have to specify an iobase, irq, scsi-id and reconnect value as well.
The aha1542 series cards have an i82077 floppy controller onboard, while the aha1540 series cards do not. These are busmastering cards, and have parameters to set the "fairness" that is used to share the bus with other devices. The boot arg looks like the following.
aha1542=iobase[,buson,busoff[,dmaspeed]]
Valid iobase values are usually one of: 0x130, 0x134, 0x230, 0x234, 0x330, 0x334. Clone cards may permit other values.
The buson, busoff values refer
to the number of microseconds that the card dominates
the ISA bus. The defaults are 11us on, and 4us off,
so that other cards (such as an ISA LANCE Ethernet
card) have a chance to get access to the ISA bus.
The dmaspeed value refers
to the rate (in MB/s) at which the DMA (Direct Memory
Access) transfers proceed. The default is 5MB/s.
Newer revision cards allow you to select this value
as part of the soft-configuration, older cards use
jumpers. You can use values up to 10MB/s assuming
that your motherboard is capable of handling it.
Experiment with caution if using values over
5MB/s.
These boards can accept an argument of the form:
aic7xxx=extended,no_reset
The extended value, if
nonzero, indicates that extended translation for
large disks is enabled. The no_reset value, if
nonzero, tells the driver not to reset the SCSI bus
when setting up the host adapter at boot.
The AdvanSys driver can accept up to four i/o addresses that will be probed for an AdvanSys SCSI card. Note that these values (if used) do not effect EISA or PCI probing in any way. They are only used for probing ISA and VLB cards. In addition, if the driver has been compiled with debugging enabled, the level of debugging output can be set by adding an 0xdeb[0-f] parameter. The 0-f allows setting the level of the debugging messages to any of 16 levels of verbosity.
AM53C974AM53C974=host-scsi-id,target-scsi-id,max-rate,max-offset
BusLogic=N1,N2,N3,N4,N5,S1,S2,...
For an extensive discussion of the BusLogic
command line parameters, see /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/BusLogic.c
(lines 3149-3270 in the kernel version I am looking
at). The text below is a very much abbreviated
extract.
The parameters N1-N5 are integers. The parameters S1,... are strings. N1 is the I/O Address at which the Host Adapter is located. N2 is the Tagged Queue Depth to use for Target Devices that support Tagged Queuing. N3 is the Bus Settle Time in seconds. This is the amount of time to wait between a Host Adapter Hard Reset which initiates a SCSI Bus Reset and issuing any SCSI Commands. N4 is the Local Options (for one Host Adapter). N5 is the Global Options (for all Host Adapters).
The string options are used to provide control over Tagged Queuing (TQ:Default, TQ:Enable, TQ:Disable, TQ:<Per-Target-Spec>), over Error Recovery (ER:Default, ER:HardReset, ER:BusDeviceReset, ER:None, ER:<Per-Target-Spec>), and over Host Adapter Probing (NoProbe, NoProbeISA, NoSortPCI).
The default list of i/o ports to be probed can be changed by
eata=
iobase,iobase,....
fdomain=iobase,irq[,adapter_id]
gvp11=dma_transfer_bitmask
tmc8xx=mem_base,irq
The mem_base value is the
value of the memory mapped I/O region that the card
uses. This will usually be one of the following
values: 0xc8000, 0xca000, 0xcc000, 0xce000, 0xdc000,
0xde000.
in2000=S
where S is a comma-separated string of items
keyword[:value]. Recognized keywords (possibly with
value) are: ioport:addr, noreset, nosync:x,
period:ns, disconnect:x, debug:x, proc:x. For the
function of these parameters, see /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/in2000.c.
The boot arg is of the form
ncr5380=iobase,irq,dma
or
ncr53c400=iobase,irq
If the card doesn't use interrupts, then an IRQ
value of 255 (0xff) will disable interrupts. An IRQ
value of 254 means to autoprobe. More details can be
found in the file Documentation/scsi/g_NCR5380.txt
(or drivers/scsi/README.g_NCR5380
for older kernels) in the kernel source.
ncr53c8xx=S
where S is a comma-separated string of items
keyword:value. Recognized keywords are: mpar
(master_parity), spar (scsi_parity), disc
(disconnection), specf (special_features), ultra
(ultra_scsi), fsn (force_sync_nego), tags
(default_tags), sync (default_sync), verb (verbose),
debug (debug), burst (burst_max). For the function of
the assigned values, see /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/ncr53c8xx.c.
ncr53c406a=iobase[,irq[,fastpio]]
Specify irq = 0 for noninterrupt driven mode. Set fastpio = 1 for fast pio mode, 0 for slow mode.
The PAS16 uses a NC5380 SCSI chip, and newer models support jumperless configuration. The boot arg is of the form:
pas16=iobase,irq
The only difference is that you can specify an IRQ value of 255, which will tell the driver to work without using interrupts, albeit at a performance loss. The iobase is usually 0x388.
If your card is not detected at boot time, you will then have to use a boot arg of the form:
st0x=mem_base,irq
The mem_base value is the
value of the memory mapped I/O region that the card
uses. This will usually be one of the following
values: 0xc8000, 0xca000, 0xcc000, 0xce000, 0xdc000,
0xde000.
These cards are also based on the NCR5380 chip, and accept the following options:
t128=mem_base,irq
The valid values for mem_base are as
follows: 0xcc000, 0xc8000, 0xdc000, 0xd8000.
The default list of i/o ports to be probed can be changed by
eata=iobase,iobase,....
wd7000=irq,dma,iobase
wd33c93=S
where S is a comma-separated string of options.
Recognized options are nosync:bitmask, nodma:x,
period:ns, disconnect:x, debug:x, clock:x, next. For
details, see /usr/src/linux/drivers/scsi/wd33c93.c.
The IDE driver accepts a number of parameters, which range from disk geometry specifications, to support for broken controller chips. Drive-specific options are specified by using 'hdX=' with X in 'a'-'h'.
Non-drive-specific options are specified with the prefix 'hd='. Note that using a drive-specific prefix for a non-drive-specific option will still work, and the option will just be applied as expected.
Also note that 'hd=' can be used to refer to the
next unspecified drive in the (a, ..., h) sequence.
For the following discussions, the 'hd=' option will
be cited for brevity. See the file Documentation/ide.txt (or
drivers/block/README.ide
for older kernels) in the kernel source for more
details.
These options are used to specify the physical geometry of the disk. Only the first three values are required. The cylinder/head/sectors values will be those used by fdisk. The write precompensation value is ignored for IDE disks. The IRQ value specified will be the IRQ used for the interface that the drive resides on, and is not really a drive-specific parameter.
The dual IDE interface CMD-640 chip is broken as designed such that when drives on the secondary interface are used at the same time as drives on the primary interface, it will corrupt your data. Using this option tells the driver to make sure that both interfaces are never used at the same time.
This option tells the driver that you have a DTC-2278D IDE interface. The driver then tries to do DTC-specific operations to enable the second interface and to enable faster transfer modes.
Do not probe for this drive. For example,
hdb=noprobe hdb=1166,7,17
would disable the probe, but still specify the drive geometry so that it would be registered as a valid block device, and hence usable.
Some drives apparently have the WRERR_STAT bit stuck on
permanently. This enables a work-around for these
broken devices.
This tells the IDE driver that there is an ATAPI compatible CD-ROM attached in place of a normal IDE hard disk. In most cases the CD-ROM is identified automatically, but if it isn't then this may help.
The standard disk driver can accept geometry arguments for the disks similar to the IDE driver. Note however that it only expects three values (C/H/S); any more or any less and it will silently ignore you. Also, it only accepts 'hd=' as an argument, that is, 'hda=' and so on are not valid here. The format is as follows:
hd=cyls,heads,sects
If there are two disks installed, the above is repeated with the geometry parameters of the second disk.
If you are unfortunate enough to be using one of these old 8 bit cards that move data at a whopping 125kB/s then here is the scoop. If the card is not recognized, you will have to use a boot arg of the form:
xd=type,irq,iobase,dma_chan
The type value specifies the particular
manufacturer of the card, overriding autodetection.
For the types to use, consult the drivers/block/xd.c source file of
the kernel you are using. The type is an index in the
list xd_sigs and in the
course of time types have been added to or deleted
from the middle of the list, changing all type
numbers. Today (Linux 2.5.0) the types are 0=generic;
1=DTC 5150cx; 2,3=DTC 5150x; 4,5=Western Digital;
6,7,8=Seagate; 9=Omti; 10=XEBEC, and where here
several types are given with the same designation,
they are equivalent.
The xd_setup() function does no checking on the values, and assumes that you entered all four values. Don't disappoint it. Here is an example usage for a WD1002 controller with the BIOS disabled/removed, using the 'default' XT controller parameters:
xd=2,5,0x320,3
ez=iobase[,irq[,rep[,nybble]]]
See also /usr/src/linux/Documentation/mca.txt.
It is possible to specify the desired geometry at boot time:
ed=cyls,heads,sectors.
For a ThinkPad-720, add the option
tp720=1.
ibmmcascsi=N
where N is the pun (SCSI ID) of the
subsystem.
The syntax for this type of card is:
aztcd=iobase[,magic_number]
If you set the magic_number to 0x79 then the driver will try and run anyway in the event of an unknown firmware version. All other values are ignored.
Syntax:
pcd.driveN=prt,pro,uni,mod,slv,dly
pcd.nice=nice
where 'port' is the base address, 'pro' is the protocol number, 'uni' is the unit selector (for chained devices), 'mod' is the mode (or −1 to choose the best automatically), 'slv' is 1 if it should be a slave, and 'dly' is a small integer for slowing down port accesses. The 'nice' parameter controls the driver's use of idle CPU time, at the expense of some speed.
This CD-ROM interface is found on some of the Pro Audio Spectrum sound cards, and other Sony supplied interface cards. The syntax is as follows:
cdu31a=iobase,[irq[,is_pas_card]]
Specifying an IRQ value of zero tells the driver that hardware interrupts aren't supported (as on some PAS cards). If your card supports interrupts, you should use them as it cuts down on the CPU usage of the driver.
The is_pas_card
should be entered as 'PAS' if using a Pro Audio
Spectrum card, and otherwise it should not be
specified at all.
The syntax for this CD-ROM interface is:
sonycd535=iobase[,irq]
A zero can be used for the I/O base as a 'placeholder' if one wishes to specify an IRQ value.
The syntax for this CD-ROM interface is:
gscd=iobase
Syntax:
isp16=[iobase[,irq[,dma[,type]]]]
(three integers and a string). If the type is given as 'noisp16', the interface will not be configured. Other recognized types are: 'Sanyo", 'Sony', 'Panasonic' and 'Mitsumi'.
The syntax for this CD-ROM interface is:
mcd=iobase,[irq[,wait_value]]
The wait_value is
used as an internal timeout value for people
who are having problems with their drive, and
may or may not be implemented depending on a
compile-time #define. The Mitsumi FX400 is an
IDE/ATAPI CD-ROM player and does not use the
mcd driver.
This is for the same hardware as above, but the driver has extended features. Syntax:
mcdx=iobase[,irq]
The syntax for this type of card is:
optcd=iobase
The syntax for this type of card is:
cm206=[iobase][,irq]
The driver assumes numbers between 3 and 11 are IRQ values, and numbers between 0x300 and 0x370 are I/O ports, so you can specify one, or both numbers, in any order. It also accepts 'cm206=auto' to enable autoprobing.
The syntax for this type of card is:
sjcd=iobase[,irq[,dma_channel]]
The syntax for this type of card is:
sbpcd=iobase,type
where type is one of the following (case sensitive) strings: 'SoundBlaster', 'LaserMate', or 'SPEA'. The I/O base is that of the CD-ROM interface, and not that of the sound portion of the card.
Different drivers make use of different parameters, but they all at least share having an IRQ, an I/O port base value, and a name. In its most generic form, it looks something like this:
ether=irq,iobase[,param_1[,...param_8]],name
The first nonnumeric argument is taken as the name. The param_n values (if applicable) usually have different meanings for each different card/driver. Typical param_n values are used to specify things like shared memory address, interface selection, DMA channel and the like.
The most common use of this parameter is to force probing for a second ethercard, as the default is to only probe for one. This can be accomplished with a simple:
ether=0,0,eth1
Note that the values of zero for the IRQ and I/O base in the above example tell the driver(s) to autoprobe.
The Ethernet-HowTo has extensive documentation on using multiple cards and on the card/driver-specific implementation of the param_n values where used. Interested readers should refer to the section in that document on their particular card.
There are many floppy driver options, and they are all
listed in Documentation/floppy.txt (or drivers/block/README.fd for
older kernels) in the kernel source. This information is
taken directly from that file.
Sets the bit mask of allowed drives to mask. By default, only units 0 and 1 of each floppy controller are allowed. This is done because certain nonstandard hardware (ASUS PCI motherboards) mess up the keyboard when accessing units 2 or 3. This option is somewhat obsoleted by the cmos option.
Sets the bit mask of allowed drives to all drives. Use this if you have more than two drives connected to a floppy controller.
Sets the bit mask to allow only units 0 and 1. (The default)
Tells the floppy driver that you have a well behaved floppy controller. This allows more efficient and smoother operation, but may fail on certain controllers. This may speed up certain operations.
Tells the floppy driver that your floppy controller should be used with caution.
Tells the floppy driver that you have only floppy controller (default)
floppy=two_fdc or
floppy=address,two_fdcTells the floppy driver that you have two floppy controllers. The second floppy controller is assumed to be at address. If address is not given, 0x370 is assumed.
Tells the floppy driver that you have a Thinkpad. Thinkpads use an inverted convention for the disk change line.
Tells the floppy driver that you don't have a Thinkpad.
Sets the cmos type of drive to type. Additionally, this drive is allowed in the bit mask. This is useful if you have more than two floppy drives (only two can be described in the physical cmos), or if your BIOS uses nonstandard CMOS types. Setting the CMOS to 0 for the first two drives (default) makes the floppy driver read the physical cmos for those drives.
Print a warning message when an unexpected interrupt is received (default behavior)
floppy=no_unexpected_interrupts
or floppy=L40SXDon't print a message when an unexpected interrupt is received. This is needed on IBM L40SX laptops in certain video modes. (There seems to be an interaction between video and floppy. The unexpected interrupts only affect performance, and can safely be ignored.)
The sound driver can also accept boot args to override
the compiled in values. This is not recommended, as it is
rather complex. It is described in the kernel source file
Documentation/sound/oss/README.OSS
(drivers/sound/Readme.linux
in older kernel versions). It accepts a boot arg of the
form:
sound=device1[,device2[,device3...[,device10]]]
where each deviceN value is of the following format 0xTaaaId and the bytes are used as follows:
T − device type: 1=FM, 2=SB, 3=PAS, 4=GUS, 5=MPU401, 6=SB16, 7=SB16-MPU401
aaa − I/O address in hex.
I − interrupt line in hex (i.e 10=a, 11=b, ...)
d − DMA channel.
As you can see it gets pretty messy, and you are better off to compile in your own personal values as recommended. Using a boot arg of 'sound=0' will disable the sound driver entirely.
Syntax:
icn=iobase,membase,icn_id1,icn_id2
where icn_id1,icn_id2 are two strings used to identify the card in kernel messages.
Syntax:
pcbit=membase1,irq1[,membase2,irq2]
where membaseN is the shared memory base of the N'th card, and irqN is the interrupt setting of the N'th card. The default is IRQ 5 and membase 0xD0000.
Syntax:
teles=iobase,irq,membase,protocol,teles_id
where iobase is the i/o port address of the card, membase is the shared memory base address of the card, irq is the interrupt channel the card uses, and teles_id is the unique ASCII string identifier.
Syntax:
riscom=iobase1[,iobase2[,iobase3[,iobase4]]]
More details can be found in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/riscom8.txt.
If this option is used, it should have precisely six parameters. Syntax:
digi=status,type,altpin,numports,iobase,membase
The parameters maybe given as integers, or as strings. If strings are used, then iobase and membase should be given in hexadecimal. The integer arguments (fewer may be given) are in order: status (Enable(1) or Disable(0) this card), type (PC/Xi(0), PC/Xe(1), PC/Xeve(2), PC/Xem(3)), altpin (Enable(1) or Disable(0) alternate pin arrangement), numports (number of ports on this card), iobase (I/O Port where card is configured (in HEX)), membase (base of memory window (in HEX)). Thus, the following two boot prompt arguments are equivalent:
digi=E,PC/Xi,D,16,200,D0000
digi=1,0,0,16,0x200,851968
More details can be found in /usr/src/linux/Documentation/digiboard.txt.
Syntax:
baycom=iobase,irq,modem
There are precisely 3 parameters; for
several cards, give several 'baycom=' commands.
The modem parameter is a string that can take
one of the values ser12, ser12*, par96, par96*.
Here the * denotes that software DCD is to be
used, and ser12/par96 chooses between the
supported modem types. For more details, see
the file Documentation/networking/baycom.txt
(or drivers/net/README.baycom
for older kernels) in the kernel source.
Syntax:
soundmodem=iobase,irq,dma[,dma2[,serio[,pario]]],0,mode
All parameters except the last are integers; the dummy 0 is required because of a bug in the setup code. The mode parameter is a string with syntax hw:modem, where hw is one of sbc, wss, wssfdx and modem is one of afsk1200, fsk9600.
Syntax:
lp=0
lp=auto
lp=reset
lp=port[,port...]
You can tell the printer driver what ports to use and what ports not to use. The latter comes in handy if you don't want the printer driver to claim all available parallel ports, so that other drivers (e.g., PLIP, PPA) can use them instead.
The format of the argument is multiple port names. For example, lp=none,parport0 would use the first parallel port for lp1, and disable lp0. To disable the printer driver entirely, one can use lp=0.
Syntax:
wdt=io,irq
The busmouse driver only accepts one parameter, that being the hardware IRQ value to be used.
And precisely the same is true for the msmouse driver.
atamouse=threshold[,y-threshold]
If only one argument is given, it is used for both x-threshold and y-threshold. Otherwise, the first argument is the x-threshold, and the second the y-threshold. These values must lie between 1 and 20 (inclusive); the default is 2.
lilo.conf(5), klogd(8), lilo(8), mount(8), rdev(8)
Large parts of this man page have been derived from the
Boot Parameter HOWTO (version 1.0.1) written by Paul
Gortmaker. More information may be found in this (or a more
recent) HOWTO. An up-to-date source of information is
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt.
This page is part of release 3.24 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting
bugs, can be found at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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Copyright (c) 1995,1997 Paul Gortmaker and Andries Brouwer This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. The GNU General Public License's references to "object code" and "executables" are to be interpreted as the output of any document formatting or typesetting system, including intermediate and printed output. This manual is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this manual; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA. This man page written 950814 by aeb, based on Paul Gortmaker's HOWTO (dated v1.0.1, 15/08/95). Major update, aeb, 970114. FIXME ? The use of quotes on this page is inconsistent with the rest of man-pages. |