Installing Linux with ISO files

I. Preparation of knowledge

1. ISO documents

Our commonly used ISO file refers to the entire CD-ROM (ISO-9660 file system) content

The image is a complete copy of the entire disc from the 0 sector to the last sector, and is often used for transmission over the network.

For ISO files we can:

1) Burn to Disc

2 use Winrar,magiciso and other software to view or release its contents under Windows

3 under a Linux system, mount the mount command to load a directory for example:

Mount-t Iso9660-o Loop./cdimg.iso/mnt/test

2. Representation of Linux partitions

The way Linux identifies a hard disk is different from Windows, and if you're using an IDE hard disk, your first hard drive is labeled/dev/hda second for/dev/hdb and so on;

And the first partition of the first hard disk is identified as/dev/hda1 the second partition is/dev/hda2 and so on;

If it is a SCSI hard drive, it is the form of/dev/sda,/dev/sdb and/dev/sda1,/dev/sda2.

In addition, Linux uses 1-4 to identify the primary partition of the hard disk, 5 and 5 represents the logical partition of the extended partition

A typical Windows system has only one primary partition C: and logical partitions for several extended partitions

So C: It corresponds to/DEV/HDA1, and D: it jumps to/dev/hda5.

3. root file System

Linux does not manage the file system as a partition as Windows does, it takes the root form:

A unique root directory \ "/\", where all the files and other directories on the system are built under it

Like a tree, starting from the only root, and increasing the length of the leaves

and windows like a forest, each partition is a tree

4. Loadlin procedure

Loadlin is a program specifically designed to boot Linux in a DOS environment, with the Linux kernel

The location of the image's file and the location of the root file system are the main parameters, such as

C:> Loadlin C:\\vmlinuz Root=/dev/hda2

The above command loads the Linux kernel image file Vmlinuz and mounts the root partition to start Linux

5. Vmlinuz and initrd.img documents

Vmlinuz is a mirrored file of the Linux kernel that can be loaded by the bootstrapper to start the Linux system

INITRD----Boot loader initialized RAM disk (full name)

is a way to start a Linux system

The current popular version of Linux is typically a modular kernel, which can be implemented without recompiling the build kernel

Add functional Modules

But if your Linux root file system is on a device driven by a module (not compiled into the kernel image)

, it cannot be loaded directly by a bootstrapper (for example, Loadlin)

This will be a initrd way to start your Linux system.

This approach consists of two stages:

1 Create a temporary root file system on a RAM disk that contains the drive modules you need on this RAM disk

2 Load the required drive module, mount the actual root file system, start Linux

And initrd.img is the image of RAM disk.

The Linux root file system does not exist until the Linux system is installed, and INITRD is also used

Way, this is the case for Loadlin

C:> Loadlin Autoboot\\vmlinuz initrd=autoboot\\initrd.img

This is where we want to specify the location of the INITRD mirrored file.

And it's no longer the root file system location.