Handbook:SPARC/Blocks/Bootloader

GRUB
When selecting a 64-bit profile during installation, then GRUB is the only supported bootloader.

Emerge
GRUB should be correctly configured for the platform automatically based on the profile. To make it explicit, however, specify it using:





The GRUB software has now been merged to the system, but not yet installed as a bootloader.

Install
If the disk is partitioned using GPT (the preferred method), then install GRUB to the BIOS boot partition. Presuming the first disk (the one where the system boots from) is, the following commands will do:



If the disk is partitioned using a Sun partition table instead, GRUB must be installed using blocklists. In this mode, instead of providing the physical disk as an argument, provide the path to the partition on which is mounted.

Configure
Next, generate the GRUB2 configuration based on the user configuration specified in the file and  scripts. In most cases, no configuration is needed by users as GRUB2 will automatically detect which kernel to boot (the highest one available in ) and what the root file system is. It is also possible to append kernel parameters in using the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX variable.

To generate the final GRUB2 configuration, run the command:

The output of the command must mention that at least one Linux image is found, as those are needed to boot the system. If an initramfs is used or was used to build the kernel, the correct initrd image should be detected as well. If this is not the case, go to and check the contents using the  command. If the files are indeed missing, go back to the kernel configuration and installation instructions.

SILO, the SPARC bootloader
When selecting a 32-bit profile during installation, then SILO (Sparc Improved boot LOader) is the only supported bootloader.

Next create :

Below an example file is shown. It uses the partitioning scheme we use throughout this book, kernel- as kernel image and initramfs-genkernel-sparc64- as initramfs.

When using the example file as delivered by Portage, be sure to comment out all lines that aren't needed.

If the physical disk on which to install SILO (as bootloader) differs from the physical disk on which resides, then first copy over  to a partition on that disk. If is a separate partition on that disk, copy over the configuration file to  and run :

Otherwise just run :