Asus' Eee PC runs a customized version of Xandros that utilizes the same "grub" boot loader and other Linux-specific components. Therefore, enabling a grub menu for selecting different modes of booting Linux is fairly straight-forward. This guide will help you boot into single-user mode (root access), and edit this boot menu to include a "Rescue Mode" for booting into single-user mode at your convenience.
Booting to Single User Mode
Power cycle your laptop if needed, or power it on.
Repeatedly press when you see the first screen with Asus'
Logo. This screen will also have an notice to enter the BIOS configuration utility.
Wait for a boot menu to appear
Note the multiple selections on this screen, including the choice "Normal Boot", "Perform Disk Scan", and "Restore Factory Settings". For reference, this is the grub boot loader menu typically located at [/dev/sda1]/boot/grub/menu.lst.
Use the cursor arrow keys to highlight the "Normal Boot"
Entry if it's not currently selected, then press the to edit this selection.
Use the cursor arrow keys to highlight the "kernel
/boot/vmlinuz..." entry, then press the key again to edit this selection
Move to the end of the next line with the cursor arrow keys
This screen will have a fairly long command.
Add the following to the end of the line, including a
Space: XANDROSBOOTDEBUG=y
Press to save your changes and go back to the first menu.
Press to boot with the changes
You'll be taken to a command line mode with a pound # prompt.
Mount the two partitions for system and user
To do this, type the following and press after each line.mount /dev/sda1 /mnt-systemmount /dev/sda2 /mnt-user
Adding a Rescue Mode
Launch vi to edit the grub boot loader menu to add a new
Entry for this kernel. Type the following command and press after it:vi /mnt-system/boot/grub/menu.lst
Use vi to add your new entry
The vi editor is not intuitive for those familiar with more graphical editors such as Notepad, Wordpad, or Word on Microsoft Windows. It is very powerful, but at the same time, very complicated and difficult to learn. For now, follow the steps below to edit this file.Use the cursor keys to move down to the first entry (paragraph) for "Normal Boot". Place the cursor on the first line of this section.Copy the section by using the following keystrokes. This will copy five lines from where the cursor is located: Move the cursor down below this section to the next blank line. Paste our previously copied text by using: For the third line of this new entry, starting with "kernel" (ie: kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21.4-eeepc quiet rw vga=785 irqpoll root=/dev/sda1), add a space and then XANDROSBOOTDEBUG=y at the end of this line. For example:kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21.4-eeepc-2GB quiet rw vga=785 irqpoll root=/dev/sda1 XANDROSBOOTDEBUG=y.
To do this, press to switch vi into insert mode, move the cursor to this location, and insert text. To remove text, use only; do not use .Rename the title of this new entry to anything you desire. For example, rename it to "Rescue Mode".To get out of vi's insert mode, and back into command mode, press .Save your file by pressing . To exit vi without saving, press .
Reboot the PC when back at the command prompt
Do this by pressing twice (possibly three times) until you either see a message that states "Press [Enter] to restart", or the until the Eee PC restarts on its own. If you followed all of the examples above, the default boot selection should be the new kernel.
Test the new mode' by repeating steps 1 to 3 of the
"Booting to Single User Mode" section, then selecting "Rescue Mode", and pressing .
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