1 Information about the simple chooser
2 --------------------------------------
3 Copyright (C) 2002-2003 Hewlett-Packard Co.
4 Contributed by Stephane Eranian <eranian@hpl.hp.com>
9 Command line option: -C simple
10 Config file option: chooser=simple, description, message
12 The simple chooser is the default chooser. However it is possible
13 to disable it at compile time, it is highly recommended to keep it
14 in. Elilo must have at least one chooser compiled in.
16 The simple chooser is very basic as its name indicates! It provides
17 a simple one line text mode command prompt similar to what you get
20 Any chooser becomes visible to the user ONLY when the interactive
23 The simple chooser allows the user to select a kernel to boot.
24 The user can use a label as specified in the elilo config file
25 or a kernel file name. File names can be specified with
26 absolute names in the form dev_name:/path/to/my_kernel.
30 The chooser is activated from:
32 - command line with the -c simple
33 - the config file with the chooser=simple option
37 The simple chooser supports the following options in the config file:
39 message=filename : display a message before the prompt. The filename
42 description=string: a description of the kernel image (ASCII)
44 All other options have their standard meaning. The chooser does not recognize
45 the fX (X varies from 1-12) options
49 The simple chooser has some builtin command which the user can
50 get to by typing certain keys as the first character on the command line:
52 TAB: shows the list of defined labels and their descriptions.
54 If the user did not type anything, i.e., the line is empty,
55 pressing TAB will print the list of labels defined in the
58 If the user already typed a name and if the name corresponds
59 to a specified label, the chooser will show how the label
60 is expanded and what the final command line to the kernel will
63 If the line is empty pressing TAB generates something similar to:
65 linux-up linux nfsroot (or any kernel file name: [dev_name:]/path/file)
67 Note that first label correspond to the default label used if the user
68 hits the enter key with an empty line. This label is not necessarily
69 the first one in the config file.
71 Now pressing TAB with a full label name:
74 desc : my default UP kernel
75 cmdline: vmlinuz root=/dev/sdb2 console=ttyS0,115200n8 console=tty0 ro
77 The desc line shows whatever was specified in the "description" option
78 for this particular image in the config file.
80 = : shows the list of accessible devices
82 this key force elilo to print the list of detected devices. Elilo will
83 auto-detect the devices which are accessible to load a config file, the kernel, the
84 initrd from. Those devices typically represent disk partition, CDROM, floppy, or
85 a network path. The list of devices is highly system dependent.
86 It also depends on the filesystem support compiled into elilo.
88 The way the devices are named depends on the device naming scheme
89 selected. It also depends on whether the EDD30 support is activated.
90 For instance, pressing the ? could look as follows:
93 scsi0 : vfat : Acpi(PNP0A03,2)/Pci(1|0)/Scsi(Pun0,Lun0)/HD(Part1,Sig72040800)
94 scsi1 : vfat : Acpi(PNP0A03,2)/Pci(1|0)/Scsi(Pun6,Lun0)/HD(Part1,Sig00000000)
95 scsi2 : ext2fs : Acpi(PNP0A03,2)/Pci(1|0)/Scsi(Pun0,Lun0)/HD(Part2,Sig72040800)
96 scsi3 : ext2fs : Acpi(PNP0A03,2)/Pci(1|0)/Scsi(Pun6,Lun0)/HD(Part2,Sig00000000)
97 net0 : netfs : Acpi(PNP0A03,0)/Pci(5|0)/Mac(00D0B7A6FC25)
98 5 devices available for booting
99 boot device net0: netfs
101 Here the vfat (EFI partition type), ext2fs and network filesysten (not to be confused
102 with NFS) were compiled into elilo and were detected on the machine. The left handside
103 of the colon show the logical name associated with the device. For instance,
104 scsi0 corresponds to the first partition of SCSI disk ID 0 and is an EFI partition.
105 The net0 correspond to a network device, here the Ethernet adapter. The last line
106 show the device used to load elilo itself, in the case elilo was downloaded from the
109 To get a kernel from scsi0, the user can simply type:
111 ELILO boot: scsi0:/usr/src/linux/vmlinux
113 Note that even though elilo was not downloaded from the network, it is still possible
114 to get the kernel and initrd from a remote machine.
116 % : shows the list of defined variables
118 Elilo has builtin variables which are used to dynamically customized the command line
119 parameters passed to the kernel. The list of variables depends on the support compiled
120 into elilo. Not all elilo subsystems use variables. Typically the network file system
121 does. Pressing '%' only prints the variables that are defined with their current values.
122 Some variables are only defined once the subsystem that creates them has been used.
123 In other words, if the network filesystem was not used to load elilo, then the variables
124 defined by it are not created.
126 If the network was actually used, pressing '%' could generate the following output:
134 & : shows the list default path
136 The path is used as a prefix for all filenames specified as
139 ? : shows the list of supported command keys
142 The simple chooser has also some builtin command line editing commands:
144 ESC : abort (leave elilo)
146 CTRL-D : abort (leave elilo)
149 empty current line and prompt for new input
151 CTRL-H : erase the previous character
153 CTRL-U : clear current line
154 reset the buffer (does not display correctly if buffer spans more than one line)
156 Backspace: erase character