BOOTPARAM(7) Linux Programmer's Manual BOOTPARAM(7)
NAME
bootparam - introduction to boot time parameters of the Linux kernel
DESCRIPTION
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 a boot loader that is able to pass
parameters, such as GRUB.
The argument list
The kernel command line is parsed into a list of strings (boot argu-
ments) separated by spaces. Most of the boot arguments take have the
form:
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 handles only 10 comma sepa-
rated parameters per keyword. (However, you can reuse the same keyword
with up to an additional 10 parameters in unusually complicated situa-
tions, assuming the setup function supports it.)
Most of the sorting is coded in the kernel source file 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 argu-
ment.
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(1) program. The most common argument
that is passed to the init process is the word 'single' which instructs
it to boot the computer in single user mode, and not launch all the
usual daemons. Check the manual page for the version of init(1)
installed on your system to see what arguments it accepts.
General non-device specific boot arguments
'init=...'
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.
'nfsaddrs=...'
This sets the nfs boot address to the given string. This boot
address is used in case of a net boot.
'nfsroot=...'
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.
'no387'
(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 argument causes Linux to ignore the maths coproces-
sor even if you have one. Of course you must then have your
kernel compiled with math emulation support!
'no-hlt'
(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.
'root=...'
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 be specified symbolically or numerically. A
symbolic specification has the form /dev/XXYN, where XX desig-
nates 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 conven-
tional.
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.)
'rootfstype=...'
The 'rootfstype' option tells the kernel to mount the root
filesystem as if it where of the type specified. This can be
useful (for example) to mount an ext3 filesystem as ext2 and
then remove the journal in the root filesystem, in fact revert-
ing its format from ext3 to ext2 without the need to boot the
box from alternate media.
'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 pro-
cesses 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.
'resume=...'
This tells the kernel the location of the suspend-to-disk data
that you want the machine to resume from after hibernation.
Usually, it is the same as your swap partition or file. Example:
resume=/dev/hda2
'reserve=...'
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 prob-
ing, 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 prob-
ing 0x300-0x31f.
'mem=...'
The BIOS call defined in the PC specification that returns the
amount of installed memory was designed only to be able to
report up to 64MB. Linux uses this BIOS call at boot to deter-
mine how much memory is installed. If you have more than 64MB
of RAM installed, you can use this boot argument to tell Linux
how much memory you have. The value is in decimal or hexadeci-
mal (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 hor-
ribly 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: 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.
'panic=N'
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
'reboot=[warm|cold][,[bios|hard]]'
(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.
Boot arguments for use by kernel developers
'debug'
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).
'profile=N'
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_PRO-
FILE_SHIFT, when that is given, or 2, the default. The signifi-
cance 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.
'swap=N1,N2,N3,N4,N5,N6,N7,N8'
Set the eight parameters max_page_age, page_advance,
page_decline, page_initial_age, age_cluster_fract, age_clus-
ter_min, pageout_weight, bufferout_weight that control the ker-
nel swap algorithm. For kernel tuners only.
'buff=N1,N2,N3,N4,N5,N6'
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.
Boot arguments for ramdisk use
(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 con-
tents 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' param-
eter to tell its size. (This could also be set in the kernel image at
compile time.) These days ram disks use the buffer cache, and grow
dynamically. For a lot of information in conjunction with the new
ramdisk setup, see the kernel source file Documentation/block-
dev/ramdisk.txt (Documentation/ramdisk.txt in older kernels).
There are four parameters, two boolean and two integral.
'load_ramdisk=N'
If N=1, do load a ramdisk. If N=0, do not load a ramdisk.
(This is the default.)
'prompt_ramdisk=N'
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).
'ramdisk_start=N'
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.
'noinitrd'
(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;
afterward 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 the kernel
source file Documentation/initrd.txt.
The 'noinitrd' option tells the kernel that although it was com-
piled 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.)
Boot arguments for SCSI devices
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 usu-
ally 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, and
so on.
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 check-
ing. Again, not all adapters will support selection of parity behavior
as a boot argument.
'max_scsi_luns=...'
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.
SCSI tape configuration
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 Linux ker-
nel source.
Adaptec aha151x, aha152x, aic6260, aic6360, SB16-SCSI configuration
The aha numbers refer to cards and the aic numbers refer to the
actual SCSI chip on these type of cards, including the Sound-
blaster-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 argument 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.
Adaptec aha154x configuration
The aha1542 series cards have an i82077 floppy controller
onboard, while the aha1540 series cards do not. These are bus-
mastering cards, and have parameters to set the "fairness" that
is used to share the bus with other devices. The boot argument
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.
Adaptec aha274x, aha284x, aic7xxx configuration
These boards can accept an argument of the form:
aic7xxx=extended,no_reset
The extended value, if nonzero, indicates that extended transla-
tion 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.
AdvanSys SCSI Hosts configuration ('advansys=')
The AdvanSys driver can accept up to four I/O addresses that
will be probed for an AdvanSys SCSI card. Note that these val-
ues (if used) do not effect EISA or PCI probing in any way.
They are used only 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.
AM53C974
Syntax:
AM53C974=host-scsi-id,target-scsi-id,max-rate,max-offset
BusLogic SCSI Hosts configuration ('BusLogic=')
Syntax:
BusLogic=N1,N2,N3,N4,N5,S1,S2,...
For an extensive discussion of the BusLogic command line parame-
ters, see the kernel source file drivers/scsi/BusLogic.c. 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 sec-
onds. 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 Queu-
ing (TQ:Default, TQ:Enable, TQ:Disable, TQ:<Per-Target-Spec>),
over Error Recovery (ER:Default, ER:HardReset, ER:BusDeviceRe-
set, ER:None, ER:<Per-Target-Spec>), and over Host Adapter Prob-
ing (NoProbe, NoProbeISA, NoSortPCI).
EATA/DMA configuration
The default list of I/O ports to be probed can be changed by
eata=iobase,iobase,....
Future Domain TMC-16x0 configuration
Syntax:
fdomain=iobase,irq[,adapter_id]
Great Valley Products (GVP) SCSI controller configuration
Syntax:
gvp11=dma_transfer_bitmask
Future Domain TMC-8xx, TMC-950 configuration
Syntax:
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 configuration
Syntax:
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 the kernel source file
drivers/scsi/in2000.c.
NCR5380 and NCR53C400 configuration
The boot argument 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 Documenta-
tion/scsi/g_NCR5380.txt (or drivers/scsi/README.g_NCR5380 for
older kernels) in the Linux kernel source.
NCR53C8xx configuration
Syntax:
ncr53c8xx=S
where S is a comma-separated string of items keyword:value.
Recognized keywords are: mpar (master_parity), spar (scsi_par-
ity), 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 the
kernel source file drivers/scsi/ncr53c8xx.c.
NCR53c406a configuration
Syntax:
ncr53c406a=iobase[,irq[,fastpio]]
Specify irq = 0 for noninterrupt driven mode. Set fastpio = 1
for fast pio mode, 0 for slow mode.
Pro Audio Spectrum configuration
The PAS16 uses a NC5380 SCSI chip, and newer models support
jumperless configuration. The boot argument 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.
Seagate ST-0x configuration
If your card is not detected at boot time, you will then have to
use a boot argument 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.
Trantor T128 configuration
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.
UltraStor 14F/34F configuration
The default list of I/O ports to be probed can be changed by
eata=iobase,iobase,....
WD7000 configuration
Syntax:
wd7000=irq,dma,iobase
Commodore Amiga A2091/590 SCSI controller configuration
Syntax:
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 the kernel source file
drivers/scsi/wd33c93.c.
Hard disks
IDE Disk/CD-ROM Driver Parameters
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 unspeci-
fied drive in the (a, ..., h) sequence. For the following dis-
cussions, the 'hd=' option will be cited for brevity. See the
file Documentation/ide.txt (or drivers/block/README.ide for
older kernels) in the Linux kernel source for more details.
The 'hd=cyls,heads,sects[,wpcom[,irq]]' options
These options are used to specify the physical geometry of the
disk. Only the first three values are required. The cylin-
der/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 'hd=serialize' option
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.
The 'hd=dtc2278' option
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.
The 'hd=noprobe' option
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.
The 'hd=nowerr' option
Some drives apparently have the WRERR_STAT bit stuck on perma-
nently. This enables a work-around for these broken devices.
The 'hd=cdrom' option
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.
Standard ST-506 Disk Driver Options ('hd=')
The standard disk driver can accept geometry arguments for the
disks similar to the IDE driver. Note however that it expects
only three values (C/H/S); any more or any less and it will
silently ignore you. Also, it accepts only 'hd=' as an argu-
ment, 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.
XT Disk Driver Options ('xd=')
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 argument 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
Syquest's EZ* removable disks
Syntax:
ez=iobase[,irq[,rep[,nybble]]]
IBM MCA bus devices
See also the kernel source file Documentation/mca.txt.
PS/2 ESDI hard disks
It is possible to specify the desired geometry at boot time:
ed=cyls,heads,sectors.
For a ThinkPad-720, add the option
tp720=1.
IBM Microchannel SCSI Subsystem configuration
Syntax:
ibmmcascsi=N
where N is the pun (SCSI ID) of the subsystem.
The Aztech Interface
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.
Parallel port CD-ROM drives
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.
The CDU-31A and CDU-33A Sony Interface
This CD-ROM interface is found on some of the Pro Audio Spectrum
sound cards, and other Sony supplied interface cards. The syn-
tax 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 CDU-535 Sony Interface
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 GoldStar Interface
The syntax for this CD-ROM interface is:
gscd=iobase
The ISP16 CD-ROM Interface
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 recog-
nized types are: 'Sanyo", 'Sony', 'Panasonic' and 'Mitsumi'.
The Mitsumi Standard Interface
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.
The Mitsumi XA/MultiSession Interface
This is for the same hardware as above, but the driver has
extended features. Syntax:
mcdx=iobase[,irq]
The Optics Storage Interface
The syntax for this type of card is:
optcd=iobase
The Phillips CM206 Interface
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 spec-
ify one, or both numbers, in any order. It also accepts
'cm206=auto' to enable autoprobing.
The Sanyo Interface
The syntax for this type of card is:
sjcd=iobase[,irq[,dma_channel]]
The SoundBlaster Pro Interface
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.
Ethernet devices
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 probe only for one. This can be accom-
plished 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.
The floppy disk driver
There are many floppy driver options, and they are all listed in Docu-
mentation/floppy.txt (or drivers/block/README.fd for older kernels) in
the Linux kernel source. This information is taken directly from that
file.
floppy=mask,allowed_drive_mask
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 mother-
boards) mess up the keyboard when accessing units 2 or 3. This
option is somewhat obsoleted by the cmos option.
floppy=all_drives
Sets the bit mask of allowed drives to all drives. Use this if
you have more than two drives connected to a floppy controller.
floppy=asus_pci
Sets the bit mask to allow only units 0 and 1. (The default)
floppy=daring
Tells the floppy driver that you have a well behaved floppy con-
troller. This allows more efficient and smoother operation, but
may fail on certain controllers. This may speed up certain
operations.
floppy=0,daring
Tells the floppy driver that your floppy controller should be
used with caution.
floppy=one_fdc
Tells the floppy driver that you have only floppy controller
(default)
floppy=two_fdc or floppy=address,two_fdc
Tells 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.
floppy=thinkpad
Tells the floppy driver that you have a Thinkpad. Thinkpads use
an inverted convention for the disk change line.
floppy=0,thinkpad
Tells the floppy driver that you don't have a Thinkpad.
floppy=drive,type,cmos
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 physi-
cal 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.
floppy=unexpected_interrupts
Print a warning message when an unexpected interrupt is received
(default behavior)
floppy=no_unexpected_interrupts or floppy=L40SX
Don'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
The sound driver can also accept boot arguments to override the com-
piled in values. This is not recommended, as it is rather complex. It
is described in the Linux kernel source file Documenta-
tion/sound/oss/README.OSS (drivers/sound/Readme.linux in older kernel
versions). It accepts a boot argument 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 argument of 'sound=0' will disable the sound driver
entirely.
ISDN drivers
The ICN ISDN driver
Syntax:
icn=iobase,membase,icn_id1,icn_id2
where icn_id1,icn_id2 are two strings used to identify the card
in kernel messages.
The PCBIT ISDN driver
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.
The Teles ISDN driver
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.
Serial port drivers
The RISCom/8 Multiport Serial Driver ('riscom8=')
Syntax:
riscom=iobase1[,iobase2[,iobase3[,iobase4]]]
More details can be found in the kernel source file Documenta-
tion/riscom8.txt.
The DigiBoard Driver ('digi=')
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 the kernel source file Documenta-
tion/digiboard.txt.
The Baycom Serial/Parallel Radio Modem
Syntax:
baycom=iobase,irq,modem
There are precisely 3 parameters; for several cards, give sev-
eral '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 driv-
ers/net/README.baycom for older kernels) in the Linux kernel
source.
Soundcard radio modem driver
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.
The line printer driver
'lp='
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.
WDT500/501 driver
Syntax:
wdt=io,irq
Mouse drivers
'bmouse=irq'
The busmouse driver accepts only one parameter, that being the
hardware IRQ value to be used.
'msmouse=irq'
And precisely the same is true for the msmouse driver.
ATARI mouse setup
Syntax:
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-thresh-
old, and the second the y-threshold. These values must lie
between 1 and 20 (inclusive); the default is 2.
Video hardware
'no-scroll'
This option tells the console driver not to use hardware scroll
(where a scroll is effected by moving the screen origin in video
memory, instead of moving the data). It is required by certain
Braille machines.
SEE ALSO
lilo.conf(5), klogd(8), lilo(8), mount(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 the kernel source file Documentation/kernel-parame-
ters.txt.
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.53 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/.
Linux 2013-06-08 BOOTPARAM(7)
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