Linux can boot using different mechanisms. Booting involves reading and placing in memory a kernel file (often called zImage or vmlinuz), then executing it. While this sounds simple, there are always some quirks to deal with. This is why booting an Operating System is a sort of ``black art.'' Unlike many boot loaders shipped with some other commercial OSs, LILO is fully documented and is by far one of the most versatile loaders.
We will first describe what is involved, and then tell you what can be done with all of it.