The process of starting a computer and loading the operating system is referred to as
“the bootstrap process”, or simply “booting”. FreeBSD's boot
process provides a great deal of flexibility in customizing what happens when you start
the system, allowing you to select from different operating systems installed on the same
computer, or even different versions of the same operating system or installed
kernel.
This chapter details the configuration options you can set and how to customize the
FreeBSD boot process. This includes everything that happens until the FreeBSD kernel has
started, probed for devices, and started init(8). If you are
not quite sure when this happens, it occurs when the text color changes from bright white
to grey.
After reading this chapter, you will know:
-
What the components of the FreeBSD bootstrap system are, and how they interact.
-
The options you can give to the components in the FreeBSD bootstrap to control the
boot process.
-
The basics of
device.hints(5).
x86 Only: This chapter only describes the boot process for FreeBSD running on
Intel x86 systems.
