Saturday, September 23, 2006

How Linux Boots

  1. The BIOS loads and execute the first 512 bytes off the disk

    (/dev/hda), a.k.a. the Master Boot Record (MBR)

  2. The boot loader executes the first 512 bytes of the partition that

    you selected (if more than one is available).

    Advanced boot loaders like Grub or System Commander offer more features

    than the DOS boot loader. Some boot loaders save their configuration in

    the MBR (hence the need to remember to run the lilo command after

    editing it to save your changes to the master boot record on disk), while others

    save their data in a partition

  3. The partition loader now decompresses the kernel in RAM, and runs it

  4. The kernel initialises devices, loads the root partition,

    loads the /sbin/init process (PID=1) that reads its configuration

    information from /etc/inittab to know which boot scripts to run

    and at which run-level to start, and which processes to spawn.

    The actual scripts are in /etc/rc.d/init.d, and /etc/rc.d/rc#.d

    only contains links

  5. Init launches Getty to open consoles, and launches Login

    to present the user with a logon prompt

Note that once the Linux kernel has been loaded by lilo,

it looks in "all the usual places" for init and runs the first copy it finds.

More information: Inside the Linux boot process by Tim Jones


Flash Plugin with Fedora Core release 5 (Bordeaux)

A week back I installed Fedora Core 5, but one thing that
kept annoying was the Flash Plugins for Mozilla Firefox,
It would not allow me to view flash sites even after I installed
the Flash Player 7 for Linux.

So to overcome that heres what we need to do :
Step 1
"Systems" > "Administration" > "Security Level and Firewall".
Enter your root password and click "ok". On the "SELinux" tab click
on "Modify SELinux Policy", click on "Compatibility"
to open it and tick the check box next to
"Allow the use of shared libraries with Text Relocation". Click "ok".
Reboot your machine to implement the new SELinux policy.

install plugins thereafter



Step 2
I have pasted below the Installations given in README file
for Flash Plugin 7.


Installation
------------

To install the Plug-in Player for Linux via an install script,
follow these directions:

- This installer is script-based and cannot be run from a GUI.
- Uncompress install_flash_player_7_linux.tar.gz.
A directory called install_flash_player_7_linux
is created. Navigate to this directory.
- From the command line,
type ./flashplayer-installer to run the installer.

The installer will instruct you to shut down your browser(s).
- Once the installation is complete, the plug-in will be installed in your
Mozilla browser. To verify,
choose Help > About Plug-ins from the browser's menu.


To manually install the Plug-in Player for Linux,

- Copy the following files to your browser's plugins folder:
libflashplayer.so
flashplayer.xpt

My Mozilla Plugin directory was here :
/usr/lib/mozilla-1.7.12