1.. _direct_005flinux_005fboot: 2 3Direct Linux Boot 4----------------- 5 6This section explains how to launch a Linux kernel inside QEMU without 7having to make a full bootable image. It is very useful for fast Linux 8kernel testing. 9 10The syntax is: 11 12.. parsed-literal:: 13 14 |qemu_system| -kernel bzImage -drive file=rootdisk.img,format=raw -append "root=/dev/sda" 15 16Use ``-kernel`` to provide the Linux kernel image and ``-append`` to 17give the kernel command line arguments. The ``-initrd`` option can be 18used to provide an INITRD image. 19 20If you do not need graphical output, you can disable it and redirect the 21virtual serial port and the QEMU monitor to the console with the 22``-nographic`` option. The typical command line is: 23 24.. parsed-literal:: 25 26 |qemu_system| -kernel bzImage -drive file=rootdisk.img,format=raw \ 27 -append "root=/dev/sda console=ttyS0" -nographic 28 29Use Ctrl-a c to switch between the serial console and the monitor (see 30:ref:`GUI_keys`). 31