Boot parameters are Linux kernel parameters which are generally used to make sure that peripherals are dealt with properly. For the most part, the kernel can auto-detect information about your peripherals. However, in some cases you'll have to help the kernel a bit.
If this is the first time you're booting the system, try the default boot parameters (i.e., don't try setting parameters) and see if it works correctly. It probably will. If not, you can reboot later and look for any special parameters that inform the system about your hardware.
Information on many boot parameters can be found in the Linux BootPrompt HOWTO, including tips for obscure hardware. This section contains only a sketch of the most salient parameters. Some common gotchas are included below in Section 5.3, “Troubleshooting the Install Process”.
When the kernel boots, a message
Memory:availk/totalk available |
should be emitted early in the process. total should match the total amount of RAM, in kilobytes. If this doesn't match the actual amount of RAM you have installed, you need to use the mem=ram parameter, where ram is set to the amount of memory, suffixed with ``k'' for kilobytes, or ``m'' for megabytes. For example, both mem=65536k and mem=64m mean 64MB of RAM.
If you are booting with a serial console, generally the kernel will autodetect this If you have a videocard (framebuffer) and a keyboard also attached to the computer which you wish to boot via serial console, you may have to pass the console=device argument to the kernel, where device is your serial device, which is usually something like ttyS0.
The installation system recognizes a few additional boot parameters which may be useful.
This parameter settings will set the highest priority of messages to be displayed.
The default installation uses debconf/priority=critical. This means that critical priority messages are shown, but high, medium, and low priority messages are skipped. If problems are encountered, the installer adjusts the priority as needed.
If you add debconf/priority=high as a boot parameter, the installation system will give you a little more control over the installation, but will still not show you the installation menu. With debconf/priority=medium, you will be shown the installation menu and gain more control over the installation. When debconf/priority=low is used, all messages are shown (this is equivalent to the expert boot method).
This boot parameter controls the type of user interface used for the installer. The current possible parameter settings are:
debconf/frontend=noninteractive
debconf/frontend=text
debconf/frontend=newt
debconf/frontend=slang
debconf/frontend=ncurses
debconf/frontend=bogl
debconf/frontend=gtk
debconf/frontend=corba
The default front end is debconf/frontend=newt. debconf/frontend=text may be preferable for serial console installs. Generally only the newt frontend is available on default install media, so this is not very useful right now.
Passing this boot parameter will cause the boot to be more verbosely logged.
This is the default.
More verbose than usual.
Lots of debugging information.
Shells are run at various points in the boot process to allow detailed debugging. Exit the shell to continue the boot.
The value of the parameter is the path to the device to load the Debian installer from. For example, INSTALL_MEDIA_DEV=/dev/floppy/0
The boot floppy, which normally scans all floppys and USB storage devices it can to find the root floppy, can be overridden by this parameter to only look at the one device.
Some architectures use the kernel framebuffer to offer installation in a number of languages. If framebuffer causes a problem on your system you can disable the feature by the parameter debian-installer/framebuffer=false. Problem symptoms are error messages about bterm or bogl, a blank screen, or a freeze within a few minutes after starting the install.
The video=vga16:off argument may also be used to disable the framebuffer. Such problems have been reported on a Dell Inspiron with Mobile Radeon card.
Set to false to prevent probing for USB on boot, if that causes problems.
By default, the debian-installer automatically probes for network configuration via DHCP. If the probe succeeds, you won't have a chance to review and chage the obtained settings. You can get to the manual network setup only in case the DHCP probe fails.
If you have a DHCP server on your local network, but want to avoid it because e.g. it gives wrong answers, you can use the parameter netcfg/disable_dhcp=true to prevent configuring the network with DHCP and to enter the information manually.
Set to false to prevent starting PCMCIA services, if that causes problems. Some laptops are well known for this misbehaviour.
If you are using a 2.2.x kernel, you may need to set ramdisk_size=13000 .