Boot Parameters - optional parameters accepted by the kernel
Serenity's kernel can process parameters at boot time. This functionality is used to control or augment the state of features during the initial startup of the system.
The kernel boot parameters take the form of {option_name}={value}
, where the ={value}
trailer can be omitted for specific parameters.
List of options:
acpi
- This parameter expects one of the following values. on
- Boot with full ACPI support, using ACPI
Machine Language interpretation (default). limited
- Boot with limited ACPI support. off
- Don't initialize ACPI at all.
ahci_reset_mode
- This parameter expects one of the following values. controller
- Reset just the AHCI controller on boot.
none
- Don't perform any AHCI reset. complete
- Reset the AHCI controller, and all AHCI ports on boot.
boot_prof
- If present on the command line, global system profiling will be enabled
as soon as possible during the boot sequence. Allowing you to profile startup of all applications.
disable_ide
- If present on the command line, the IDE controller will not be initialized
during the boot sequence. Leaving only the AHCI and Ram Disk controllers.
disable_physical_storage
- If present on the command line, neither AHCI, or IDE controllers will be initialized on boot.
disable_ps2_controller
- If present on the command line, the I8042 keyboard controller will not be initialized on boot.
disable_uhci_controller
- If present on the command line, the UHCI controller will not be initialized on boot.
disable_virtio
- If present on the command line, virtio devices will not be detected, and initialized on boot.
enable_ioapic
- This parameter expects on
or off
and is by default set to on
.
When set to off
, the kernel will initialize the two i8259 PICs.
When set to on
, the kernel will try to initialize the IOAPIC (or IOAPICs if there's more than one),
but only if acpi
is set to limited
or on
, and a MADT
(APIC) table is available.
Otherwise, the kernel will fallback to use the i8259 PICs.
fbdev
- This parameter expects one of the following values. on
- Boot into the graphical environment (default). off
- Boot into text mode. bootloader
- Boot into the graphical environment, but only use the frame buffer set up by the bootloader and do not initialize any other graphics cards.
force_pio
- If present on the command line, the IDE controllers will be force into PIO mode when initialized IDE Channels on boot.
hpet
- This parameter expects one of the following values. periodic
- The High Precision Event Timer should
be configured in a periodic mode. nonperiodic
- The High Precision Event Timer should eb configure din non-periodic mode.
init
- This parameter expects the fully qualified path to the init program the Kernel should launch after boot.
This defaults to SystemServer
(7).
init_args
- This parameter expects a set of arguments to pass to the init
program.
The value should be a set of strings separated by ,
characters.
panic
- This parameter expects halt
or shutdown
. This is particularly useful in CI contexts.
pci_ecam
- This parameter expects on
or off
.
root
- This parameter configures the device to use as the root file system. It defaults to /dev/hda
if unspecified.
smp
- This parameter expects a binary value of on
or off
. If enabled kernel will
enable available APs (application processors) and use them with the BSP (Bootstrap processor) to
schedule and run threads.
This parameter defaults to off
. This parameter requires enable_ioapic
to be enabled
and and a MADT
(APIC) table to be available.
system_mode
- This parameter is not interpreted by the Kernel, and is made available at /proc/system_mode
. SystemServer uses it to select the set of services that should be started. Common values are:
graphical
(default) - Boots the system in the normal graphical mode.self-test
- Boots the system in self-test, validation mode.text
- Boots the system in text only mode. (You may need to also set fbdev=off
.)time
- This parameter expects one of the following values. modern
- This configures the system to attempt
to use High Precision Event Timer (HPET) on boot. legacy
- Configures the system to use the legacy programmable interrupt
time for managing system team.
vmmouse
- This parameter expects a binary value of on
or off
. If enabled and
running on a VMWare Hypervisor, the kernel will enable absolute mouse mode.