Understanding the boot process

The term ``boot'' means to start the operating system. It derives from the phrase ``pulling yourself up by your bootstraps'' and aptly describes the procedure by which a small program, permanently stored on the hard disk, executes automatically to load the operating system into main memory (sometimes called system RAM) and begin its initialization. The first time your system boots is during installation. The operating system can be booted again (often referred to as ``rebooting''). A system is sometimes rebooted so that aspects of system operation that may be causing problems can be manually checked by interrupting the reboot and initiating the Boot Command Processor (BCP--an interactive boot process). For example, following the prompt Starting UnixWare..., you can press any key to interrupt the normal boot process and initiate the BCP. For more information on this topic see ``Initiating an interactive boot session''.