On SPARC and Ultra SPARC workstation and server systems, silo is used to load the kernel image.
Silo falls into the category of new-generation loaders that are able to read filesystems natively - but silo only supports ext2, iso9660 and ufs filesystems. So the choise for the filesystem holding the kernel images is quite limitted ...
In T2 Linux the silo package installs a STONE module which can configure and install lilo automatically.
The layout of configuration file /etc/silo.conf is quite simple. The file might contain multiple image section specifying the kernel image to load, with optional arguments thereafter. With 'root=' the system's root device needs to be specified, 'label=' specifies the name used by silo to refer to this configuration and 'read-only' specifies that the root device should be mounted read only by default. So a basic configuration looks like:
image = /boot/vmlinux64.gz
root = /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0/part2
label = t2
read-only
A quite unique feature of silo are architecture dependent kernel images. The architecture comma separated and specified in brackets ('[]') behind the image keyword:
image[sun4u] = /boot/vmlinux64.gz
label = install
initrd = /boot/initrd.img
image[sun4c,sun4d,sun4m]=/boot/vmlinux.gz
label=install
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
Using this feature, it is possible to create CDs boot-able on 32bit and 64bit SPARC systems.
The silo executeable must only be run when silo is first installed into the boot sector.