Boot

9 atomic recall cards. Export to Anki and let spaced repetition do its slow work.

In Anki: File → Import, choose this TSV, set field separator to Tab, deck = Sand to Silicon · Ch 25, note type = Basic.

Front	Back
What is the x86 reset vector address?	0xFFFFFFF0.
Where does the reset vector point?	Into flash memory on the motherboard, where UEFI (or BIOS) firmware lives.
What is the difference between BIOS and UEFI?	BIOS is the older firmware standard; UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) is the modern replacement found on current PCs.
Name three things UEFI does during hardware initialization.	Detects DRAM and runs memory training, enumerates PCIe devices, sets up the interrupt controller (any three from: microcode config, chipset init, locating bootable storage).
What is GRUB?	The most common Linux bootloader — its job is to find the kernel on disk, decompress it into RAM, and jump to its entry point.
What is vmlinuz?	The Linux kernel image on disk — a self-extracting compressed blob the bootloader must decompress into a clean region of RAM.
What is the first function the Linux kernel calls, and what is PID 1?	start_kernel(); PID 1 is the init process (today usually systemd on Linux), the parent of every other process.
How long does a modern UEFI boot take, from power-on to kernel hand-off?	~3 seconds.
How many stages does the chapter identify in the power-on-to-login relay race?	Five: power-on reset, firmware, bootloader, kernel init, userspace.