Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 21 Aug 1997 09:16:31 +0200 | From | Martin von Loewis <> | Subject | Re: LILO (fwd) |
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> I looked at "solo" (not silo), and it even deciphers ELF (though I > suspect at a minimal level). But you still need to store sector > references to find the second stage loader. > > And there's not just "the filesystem", there are several. Thus, > either the second stage loader understands all the important ones, > or it has to have sector links to additional modules. > > (I'd also like to see a bootmanager style menu, ability to > automatically set the default to the last thing you booted, and > stuffing of key strokes; also, IMHO, linux should do more of the work > and the boot loaders less)
You've just invented GRUB, the GRand Unified Boot loader. It understands to read ext2, fat, and ufs, and can be extended to support more file systems by linking in the support. In addition, it supports the traditional PC style bootsector chainloading.
It boots Linux, FreeBSD, and multiboot kernels. Multiboot is a standard how protected mode kernels could communicate with the boot loader. There was a patch at one time to make Linux multiboot compliant. Current multiboot systems are Mach and the Hurd.
It has both a boot menu and a boot command language in case you want to boot something that's not in the menu.
Regards, Martin
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