Comparison of boot loaders
Encyclopedia
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of available boot loaders
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Booting
In computing, booting is a process that begins when a user turns on a computer system and prepares the computer to perform its normal operations. On modern computers, this typically involves loading and starting an operating system. The boot sequence is the initial set of operations that the...
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Features
| Name | License | It can reside in | Boot from | Can boot | |||||||||||||||||
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| MBR Master boot record A master boot record is a type of boot sector popularized by the IBM Personal Computer. It consists of a sequence of 512 bytes located at the first sector of a data storage device such as a hard disk... only |
MBR Master boot record A master boot record is a type of boot sector popularized by the IBM Personal Computer. It consists of a sequence of 512 bytes located at the first sector of a data storage device such as a hard disk... / VBR Volume Boot Record A volume boot record is a type of boot sector introduced by the IBM Personal Computer... |
Floppy Floppy Floppy may refer to:* Floppy disk or floppy disk drive* Floppy disk controller* The Floppy Show* Mr. Floppy from the Sitcom Unhappily Ever After* Mr Floppy Australian rock band* Floppy a character from The Magic Key... |
Hard disk Hard disk A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the... |
Second Hard disk | Logical partitions Logical disk A logical disk is a device that provides an area of usable storage capacity on one or more physical disk drive components in a computer system. Other terms that are used to mean the same thing are partition, logical volume, and in some cases a virtual disk .The disk is described as logical because... |
CD-ROM CD-ROM A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data.... |
Floppy Floppy disk A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles... |
USB Universal Serial Bus USB is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices.... |
Zip Zip drive The Zip drive is a medium-capacity removable disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, but later versions increased this to first 250 MB and then 750 MB.... |
LAN Local area network A local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building... |
MS-DOS MS-DOS MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating... |
Windows 9x Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced since 1995, which were based on the original and later modified Windows 95 kernel... /Me Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006.... |
Windows NT series Windows NT Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement... |
Windows Vista Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs... /7 |
Linux Linux Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds... |
ReactOS ReactOS ReactOS is an open source computer operating system intended to be binary compatible with application software and device drivers made for Microsoft Windows NT versions 5.x and up... |
MenuetOS MenuetOS MenuetOS is an operating system with a monolithic preemptive, real-time kernel, including video drivers, all written in FASM assembly language, for 64-bit and 32-bit x86 architecture computers, by Ville M. Turjanmaa... |
*BSD | Mac OS X Mac OS X Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems... |
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| Acronis OS Selector | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| AiR-Boot | GPL | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Barebox Barebox Barebox is an open source, primary boot loader used in embedded devices. It is available for a number of different computer architectures, including ARM, Blackfin, MIPS, Nios and x86.- History :The barebox project began in July 2007... |
GPL v2 GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
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| Boot Camp | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| BootIt Next Generation | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| BootKey | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| bootman Bootman bootman is the Haiku and BeOS boot loader on x86 systems. It resides solely in the master boot record and does not require installing Haiku or BeOS, although it must be installed from Haiku or BeOS.... |
MIT MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms... |
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| BootX (Apple) BootX (Apple) BootX is a software-based bootloader designed and developed by Apple Inc. for use on the company's Macintosh computer range. BootX is used to prepare the computer for use by loading all required device drivers and then starting-up Mac OS X by booting the kernel on all PowerPC Macintoshes running... |
Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| BootX (Linux) BootX (Linux) BootX is the name of a graphical bootloader developed by Benjamin Herrenschmidt, which runs as an application or an extension to Mac OS 8 and 9 that allows Old World Apple computers to boot Linux. It is no longer maintained by its original author, as it does not work with any current hardware, but... |
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| Darwin Boot Loader | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Das U-Boot Das U-Boot Das U-Boot is an open source, primary boot loader used in embedded devices. It is available for a number of different computer architectures, including PPC, ARM, MIPS, AVR32, x86, 68k, Nios, and MicroBlaze.- Supported File Systems :... |
GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
(FreeBSD) | |||||||||||||||||||
| GAG GAG (boot loader) GAG is a GNU GPL boot loader for x86 computers. It doesn't need its own partition — it installs directly to the boot sector of Hard disk or floppy disk which allows it to survive to repartitioning or formatting. It is distributed as a bootable disk image, which makes it fully operating... |
GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
(SafeBoot) | |||||||||||||||||||
| GRUB | GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
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| GRUB2 | GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
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| GRUB4DOS | GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
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| Gujin http://gujin.sourceforge.net/ | GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
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| LILO LILO (boot loader) LILO is a generic boot loader for Linux.-Overview:LILO does not depend on a specific file system, and can boot an operating system from floppy disks and hard disks. One of up to sixteen different images can be selected at boot time. Various parameters, such as the root device, can be set... |
BSD license BSD licenses BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses. The original license was used for the Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix-like operating system after which it is named.... |
(FreeBSD, PC-BSD, ...) | |||||||||||||||||||
| loadlin Loadlin loadlin is a Linux boot loader that runs under DOS or Microsoft Windows . It allows the Linux system to load and replace the running DOS/Windows without altering existing DOS/Windows system files.... |
GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
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| Madboot | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| MasterBooter | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| NTLDR NTLDR NTLDR is the boot loader for all releases of Windows NT operating system up to and including Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. NTLDR is typically run from the primary hard disk drive, but it can also run from portable storage devices such as a CD-ROM, USB flash drive, or floppy disk... |
Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| OSL2000 Boot Manager | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| PLoP Bootmanager | Freeware Freeware Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the... |
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| RedBoot RedBoot RedBoot is an open source application that uses the eCos real-time operating system Hardware Abstraction Layer to provide bootstrap firmware for embedded systems... |
mod GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
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| Smart Boot Manager | GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
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| SPFdisk | Open source | ||||||||||||||||||||
| SYSLINUX SYSLINUX The SYSLINUX Project is a suite of lightweight IBM PC MBR bootloaders for starting up computers with the Linux kernel. It is the work of H. Peter Anvin, and consists of several separate systems, the best-known of which is ISOLINUX.-List:... |
GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
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| XOSL XOSL xOSL is the name of a bootloader, which is a program product class that launches operating systems from a bootable device such as a hard disk or floppy drive. The letters are an acronym that stand for eXtended Operating System Loader... |
GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
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| zBoot Manager | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| Windows Boot Manager | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| FreeLoader Freeloader The term "Freeloader" in everyday speech refers to a "mooch" or a schnorrer. The technical term for such a person is a free rider.Freeloader may also refer to:* Freeloaders , an electronic music act... (ReactOS Boot Loader) |
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| Name | Software license | It can reside in | Boot from | Can boot | |||||||||||||||||
| MBR Master boot record A master boot record is a type of boot sector popularized by the IBM Personal Computer. It consists of a sequence of 512 bytes located at the first sector of a data storage device such as a hard disk... only |
MBR Master boot record A master boot record is a type of boot sector popularized by the IBM Personal Computer. It consists of a sequence of 512 bytes located at the first sector of a data storage device such as a hard disk... / VBR Volume Boot Record A volume boot record is a type of boot sector introduced by the IBM Personal Computer... |
Floppy Floppy Floppy may refer to:* Floppy disk or floppy disk drive* Floppy disk controller* The Floppy Show* Mr. Floppy from the Sitcom Unhappily Ever After* Mr Floppy Australian rock band* Floppy a character from The Magic Key... |
Hard disk Hard disk A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the... |
Second hard disk | Logical partitions Logical disk A logical disk is a device that provides an area of usable storage capacity on one or more physical disk drive components in a computer system. Other terms that are used to mean the same thing are partition, logical volume, and in some cases a virtual disk .The disk is described as logical because... |
CD-ROM CD-ROM A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data.... |
Floppy Floppy disk A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles... |
USB Universal Serial Bus USB is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices.... |
Zip Zip drive The Zip drive is a medium-capacity removable disk storage system that was introduced by Iomega in late 1994. Originally, Zip disks launched with capacities of 100 MB, but later versions increased this to first 250 MB and then 750 MB.... |
LAN Local area network A local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building... |
MS-DOS MS-DOS MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating... |
Windows 9x Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced since 1995, which were based on the original and later modified Windows 95 kernel... /Me Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006.... |
Windows NT series Windows NT Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement... |
Windows Vista Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs... |
Linux Linux Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds... |
ReactOS ReactOS ReactOS is an open source computer operating system intended to be binary compatible with application software and device drivers made for Microsoft Windows NT versions 5.x and up... |
MenuetOS MenuetOS MenuetOS is an operating system with a monolithic preemptive, real-time kernel, including video drivers, all written in FASM assembly language, for 64-bit and 32-bit x86 architecture computers, by Ville M. Turjanmaa... |
*BSD | Mac OS X Mac OS X Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems... |
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| Name | Advanced command | Scriptable | Supported device | Supported architecture | Supported filesystem | Supported OS | Supported executable | Supported protocol | Supported decompression | Others | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GRUB Legacy GNU GRUB GNU GRUB is a boot loader package from the GNU Project. GRUB is the reference implementation of the Multiboot Specification, which provides a user the choice to boot one of multiple operating systems installed on a computer or select a specific kernel configuration available on a particular... |
? | i386(pc) | FAT16, FAT32, MINIX fs, Linux ext2fs, ReiserFS, JFS, XFS, VSTa fs | FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, GNU/Linux | ELF | TFTP | gzip | ||||
| GRUB 2 GNU GRUB GNU GRUB is a boot loader package from the GNU Project. GRUB is the reference implementation of the Multiboot Specification, which provides a user the choice to boot one of multiple operating systems installed on a computer or select a specific kernel configuration available on a particular... |
? | i386(PC, coreboot, OLPC, Mac), PowerPC(Mac, Pegasos II), Sun UltraSPARC(SPARC v9) | ext2, ext3, ext4, btrfs, zfs, ufs, minix, iso9660, udf, jfs, hfs, hfs+, afs, affs, sfs, xfs, reiserfs, tar, cpio, ntfs, FAT16, FAT32 | Linux(PC, mac), FreeBSD(pc), OpenBSD(pc), NetBSD(pc) | ? | ? | ? | ||||
| LILO LILO (boot loader) LILO is a generic boot loader for Linux.-Overview:LILO does not depend on a specific file system, and can boot an operating system from floppy disks and hard disks. One of up to sixteen different images can be selected at boot time. Various parameters, such as the root device, can be set... |
? | i386(PC) | agnostic | ? | ? | ? | bzip2, gzip | ||||
| LOLO (Logic PD) | MCF54xx, MCF5329, MCF5373, LLH7A400, LLH7A404, LLH79520, LLH79524, LSH7727, LSH7750, LSH7760, PXA270, PXA320, IMX31, IMX27, OMAP35xx, OMAP37xx | ARM7, ARM9, ARM11, Cortex-A8, StrongARM, SH, ColdFire | FAT16, FAT32, YAFFS1, YAFFS2 | Linux, WinCE | ELF, binary, BIN (WinCE), SREC | TFTP | ? | ||||
| SYSLINUX SYSLINUX The SYSLINUX Project is a suite of lightweight IBM PC MBR bootloaders for starting up computers with the Linux kernel. It is the work of H. Peter Anvin, and consists of several separate systems, the best-known of which is ISOLINUX.-List:... |
? | ? | ? | ? | ext2, ext3, FAT | GNU/Linux, ? | ? | ? | ? | ||
| Yaboot Yaboot Yaboot is a boot loader for PowerPC-based hardware running Linux, particularly New World ROM Macintosh systems. It is built to run within the Open Firmware layer common to most such systems instead of working as a Mac OS 9 program like its predecessor BootX.... |
? | PowerPC(Open Firmware) | ext2, ext3, ? | GNU/Linux, ? | ? | ? | ? | ||||
| RedBoot RedBoot RedBoot is an open source application that uses the eCos real-time operating system Hardware Abstraction Layer to provide bootstrap firmware for embedded systems... |
yes | yes (boot only) | ? | ARM, ColdFire, H8300, x86, Freescale/Motorola 68000, MIPS, PPC, SH, SPARC, SPARCLite | JFFS2 | Linux, eCos | ELF | TFTP, serial (X-modem) | gzip | ||
| Das U-Boot Das U-Boot Das U-Boot is an open source, primary boot loader used in embedded devices. It is available for a number of different computer architectures, including PPC, ARM, MIPS, AVR32, x86, 68k, Nios, and MicroBlaze.- Supported File Systems :... |
? | PPC, ARM, AVR32, Blackfin, ColdFire, IXP, Leon2, m68k, MicroBlaze, MIPS, NIOS, NIOS2, PXA, x86, StrongARM, SH2, SH3, SH4, ... | FAT, VFAT, ext2, ext3, jffs2, cramfs, reiserfs, yaffs2, ubifs, nfs | 4_4bsd, Artos, Dell, Esix, FreeBSD, Irix, Linux, LynxOS, NCR, NetBSD, OpenBSD, pSOS, QNX, RTEMS, SCO, Solaris, SVR4, U-Boot, VXworks | ELF, U-Boot image format | TFTP, NFS, serial (S-Record, Y-Modem, Kermit binary protocol) | bzip2, gzip, lzma | ||||
| Barebox Barebox Barebox is an open source, primary boot loader used in embedded devices. It is available for a number of different computer architectures, including ARM, Blackfin, MIPS, Nios and x86.- History :The barebox project began in July 2007... |
? | ARM, Blackfin, NIOS2, MIPS, x86, PPC | FAT, VFAT, cramfs, nfs | Linux | ? | TFTP, NFS, serial (S-Record, Y-Modem) | bzip2, gzip, lzma | ||||
| kboot | ? | ? | ? | i386 | most supported by Linux Kernel (ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, xfs, jfs, etc..) | Linux | ? | HTTP, FTP, TFTP | ? | SSH, NFS support. kexec-based bootloader. | |
| Runnix | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | Linux | ? | ? | ? | kexec and SYSLINUX based bootloader. | |
| kexec-loader | ? | i386 | most supported by Linux Kernel (ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, xfs, jfs, etc..) | Linux/multiboot | ? | No networking | gzip (for kernel modules) | Kernel/multiboot module support | |||
| NTLDR NTLDR NTLDR is the boot loader for all releases of Windows NT operating system up to and including Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. NTLDR is typically run from the primary hard disk drive, but it can also run from portable storage devices such as a CD-ROM, USB flash drive, or floppy disk... |
? | i386(PC) | ? | Windows | ? | ? | ? | default bootloader on Windows NT | |||
| FREELDR | ? | i386(PC), ARM, PowerPC | ext2, FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, ISO, NTFS | ReactOS, Linux, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 | ? | ? | ? | clone of NTLDR | |||
| boot0 | FreeBSD's bootloader | ||||||||||
| extipl | IBM IPL upper compatible | ||||||||||
| Multiple Boot Manager | PC DOS, MS-DOS, Windows, OS/2, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, BeOS, B-right/V, Solaris, OpenStep, Plan 9, EOTA | ||||||||||
| bootload (Technologic Systems) | ARM | Linux | Proprietary Proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary... |
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| Name | Advanced command | Scriptable | Supported device | Supported architecture | Supported filesystem | Supported OS | Supported executable | Supported protocol | Supported decompression | Others |
External links
- FreeLoader in the ReactOS Wiki
- PLoP Let you boot legacy PCs from CD-ROM and USB without BIOS support