A computer running FreeBSD can boot by several methods, although the most common method, booting from a harddisk where the OS is installed, will be discussed here. The boot process is divided into several steps:
BIOS POST
boot0
stage
boot2
stage
loader stage
kernel initialization
The boot0
and boot2
stages are also referred to as bootstrap stages 1 and
2 in boot(8) as the first steps in FreeBSD's
3-stage bootstrapping procedure. Various information is printed
on the screen at each stage, so you may visually recognize them
using the table that follows. Please note that the actual data
may differ from machine to machine:
Output (may vary) | BIOS (firmware) messages |
F1 FreeBSD
F2 BSD
F5 Disk 2 |
|
>>FreeBSD/i386 BOOT
Default: 1:ad(1,a)/boot/loader
boot: |
|
BTX loader 1.0 BTX version is 1.01
BIOS drive A: is disk0
BIOS drive C: is disk1
BIOS 639kB/64512kB available memory
FreeBSD/i386 bootstrap loader, Revision 0.8
Console internal video/keyboard
(jkh@bento.freebsd.org, Mon Nov 20 11:41:23 GMT 2000)
/kernel text=0x1234 data=0x2345 syms=[0x4+0x3456]
Hit [Enter] to boot immediately, or any other key for command prompt
Booting [kernel] in 9 seconds..._ | loader |
Copyright (c) 1992-2002 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD 4.6-RC #0: Sat May 4 22:49:02 GMT 2002
devnull@kukas:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/DEVNULL
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz | kernel |
[a] This
prompt will appear if the user presses a key just
after selecting an OS to boot at the
|
This, and other documents, can be downloaded from http://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/
For questions about FreeBSD, read the
documentation before
contacting <questions@FreeBSD.org>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.