LPIC Level 1 101-500 Syllabus Exam Questions Answers

The bootloader is a program that is executed by the BIOS after it completes its tasks of initializing the hardware and performing the POST (Power-On Self Test). The bootloader is responsible for loading the kernel and other necessary files into memory and passing control to the kernel. The bootloader can be either installed in the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the disk or in a separate partition. Some examples of bootloaders are GRUB, LILO, and SYSLINUX. References: LPI Linux Essentials - 1.101.1, LPI Linux Administrator - 102.1

The GRUB boot process consists of three stages1:

Stage 1: This stage is located in the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the first hard disk or the boot sector of a partition. Its main function is to load either Stage 1.5 or Stage 22.

Stage 1.5: This stage is located in the first 30 KB of hard disk immediately following the MBR or in the boot sector of a partition. It contains the code to access the file system that contains the GRUB configuration file. Its main function is to load Stage 22.

Stage 2: This stage is located in an ordinary file system, usually in the /boot/grub directory. It contains the code to display the GRUB menu and to load the kernel and initrd images. It can also load additional modules to support other file systems or features2.

The message “Hard Disk Error” is displayed on the screen during Stage 1 of the GRUB boot process. This indicates that the next Stage (either Stage 1.5 or Stage 2) cannot be read from the hard disk because GRUB was unable to determine the size and geometry of the disk3. This could occur because the BIOS translated geometry has been changed by the user or the disk is moved to another machine or controller after installation, or GRUB was not installed using itself (if it was, the Stage 2 version of this error would have been seen during that process and it would not have completed the install)3.

The other options in the question are not correct because:

A. The kernel was unable to execute /bin/init: This error would occur in Stage 2, after the kernel and initrd images are loaded, not in Stage 14.

C. One or more of the filesystems on the hard disk has errors and a filesystem check should be run: This error would also occur in Stage 2, when GRUB tries to access the file system that contains the GRUB configuration file, not in Stage 15.

D. The BIOS was unable to read the necessary data from the Master Boot Record to begin the boot process: This error would prevent GRUB from starting at all, not in Stage 16.

The lspci command can display information about the system hardware, such as:

Device IRQ settings1: The lspci command can show the interrupt request (IRQ) number assigned to each device by using the -v option. The IRQ number indicates how the device communicates with the CPU.

PCI bus speed2: The lspci command can show the speed of the PCI bus by using the -vv option. The speed is expressed in megahertz (MHz) or gigahertz (GHz) and indicates how fast the data can be transferred between the device and the bus.

Device vendor identification3: The lspci command can show the name and identification number of the device vendor by using the -n or -nn option. The vendor identification helps to identify the manufacturer and model of the device.

The file in the /proc filesystem that lists the parameters passed from the bootloader to the kernel is /proc/cmdline. This file contains a single line of text that shows the command line arguments that were used to boot the kernel. These arguments can include various options, such as the root device, the init process, the console device, and more. The /proc/cmdline file is read-only and cannot be modified at runtime. The parameters in this file are determined by the bootloader configuration, such as GRUB or LILO, and can be changed by editing the corresponding files12.