Operating System Design/Initialization

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[edit] Initialization

When a computer is first started, it comes in an unknown state. Static electricity and remnants of previous states can create values that are not valid states for the machine. In self defense computer programmers have learned to initialize all variables before using them. After an initial start-up process, called the power-on-self-test or POST, the computer usually passes execution over to the ROM, where the BIOS system initializes the bottom page or so of ram, and then passes execution to the Boot Process. One of the first things that the boot process does is load the boot loader, which then loads the operating system.

• Boot loader
• Hardware Initialization