Alphabetical Index of Common Options

This is an alphabetical table of many of the more commonly used boot options. They are colored coded by when the option takes effect. The pre-bootstrap and post-bootstrap options are all kernel options. The pre-bootstrap ones take effect immediately when the kernel starts and the post-bootstrap ones take effect when modules are loaded which happens right at the start of the init process, right after the linuxrc bootstrap.

Tip

In almost every Linux system, you can find out what boot options were used with the command "cat /proc/cmdline". If you want to see one option per line then do:

for opt in $(cat /proc/cmdline); do echo $opt; done
Legend
yellow = before bootstrap
white = during bootstrap
green = right after bootstrap
blue = during init
Option Section Definition
bootdev boot the name of the device that holds the linuxfs file
bootdir boot the directory that holds the linuxfs file
bootlabel boot the label of the device that holds the linuxfs file
bp debug set a breakpoint in linuxrc script
bootuuid boot the UUID of the device that holds the linuxfs file
check debug check the md5 sum for linuxfs and iso files
dark make output colors darker
db+ debug enable limited linuxrc debugging
db- debug disable limited linuxrc debugging
debug debug puts kernel in debug mode
delay debug wait "delay" seconds before looking for the linuxfs file
desktop personalize which desktop manager to use
dpi personalize Set display resolution (in X-windows)
drvr personalize which video driver to use
fromhd deprecated use cheat:bootdev: or cheat:bootlabel: or cheat:bootuuid:
fromiso deprecated the device containing an ISO file to boot off of
image_dir deprecated use cheat:bootdir:
image_name deprecated use cheat:sqname:
highcolor make output more colorful
lang personalize Set language
kbd personalize Set keyboard layout
kbdvar personalize set keyboard variant
kbopt personalize set keyboard options
lean optimize turn off some services usually not needed in LiveCD/USB
lowcolor make output less colorful
mean optimize disable network connections
mem debug pretend system has less memory
mirror optimize set apt mirror
nocolor remove all color from output
nodeb debug don't install .deb files from the deb/ subdirectory
noetc debug don't load /etc files from the etc/ subdirectory
nohal disable hal and dbus
nomodeset disable all modesetting
noremaster remaster don't remaster even when a .new file is found
nouveau.modeset disable modesetting for nouveau driver
noRox personalize disable Rox desktop with some icons
noxorg personalize use automatic X detection
persist persistence set persistence options
persistdev persistence the device holding the persistence file(s)
persistdir persistence the directory holding the persistence file(s)
persistlabel persistence the label of the device holding the persistence file(s)
persistretry persistence number of times to retry mounting persist device
persistuuid persistence the UUID of the device holding the persistence file(s)
pk debug control kernel messages during bootstrap
pki debug control kernel messages at start of init
quiet debug turn off many kernel messages
retry boot number of times to retry mounting the boot device
rollback remaster return to previous version after a failed remaster
rootdelay debug wait this many seconds before booting
rwmode default mode for mounting file systems in linuxrc
sqext boot the extension of the linuxfs file
sqname boot the name of the linuxfs file [antiX/linuxfs]
toram optimize copy the linuxfs file into RAM to speed up operations
tz personalize Set the timezone
usb-mount personalize Set external devices to auto-mount when attached.
vga personalize set resolution of the virtual consoles
verbose debug the level of verbosity
wait debug wait "wait" seconds before running init
Xtralean optimize disable even more services