In the last chapter, we created the x86vbox device and we were able to build it in our environment. In this chapter, we will start to debug the boot up process for x86vbox. The first thing that we meet in the boot up process is the bootloader issue. We could use the same GRUB bootloader as Android-x86. With GRUB, we still have issues about how to configure and install it on the storage media. If we go this way, we need to spend some time talking about the topics related to bootloader.

Using VirtualBox as a virtual hardware platform, we have a much simpler solution. We can use the built-in PXE boot mechanism to avoid bootloader issues. From a debugging point of view, PXE boot can make the entire boot up process more transparent to us. With PXE boot, we can move the installation of bootloader out of the picture so we can concentrate on debugging the Android system itself. In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Setting up a PXE boot environment
• Configuring VirtualBox to boot from PXE
• Setting up the root filesystem using NFS