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Boot Loader - Boot Manager

Boot Loader - Boot Manager

Feb 18, 2023

  • boot managers present a menu of boot options or provide some other way to control the boot process. The user can then select an option, and the boot manager passes control to the selected tool
  • boot loaders handle the task of loading an OS kernel into memory, often along with support files such as a Linux initial RAM disk (initrd) file, and starting the kernel running

From an EFI/UEFI perspective, both boot loaders and boot managers are simply EFI/UEFI programs

Boot Loader and/or Boot Manager - Types


Type		Boot Loaders
and/or
Boot Managers
Deprecated?		BIOS
and/or
EFI/UEFI
Description
Master Boot Record (MBR)N/A

PHASING OUT

&

IN SUPPORT

BIOS

is a partition scheme type

Grand Unified Boot Loader 2 (GRand Unified Bootloader (GRUB 2))BOTHIN SUPPORTEFI/UEFIsuperseded GRUB Legacy
Grand Unified Boot Loader Legacy (GRUB Legacy)BOTHPHASING OUTEFI/UEFIsuperseded by GRUB 2
Boot Camp Assistant
IN SUPPORT

  • is a multi-boot utility for installing Windows on Intel-based Macintosh computers
  • support.apple.com/boot-camp

LInux LOader (LILO)LOADERDEPRECATED
is a Linux bootloader
gummiboot/systemd-bootMANAGER


rEFIndMANAGERIN SUPPORTEFI/UEFI

  • is a fork of the rEFIt boot manager
  • like rEFIt, rEFInd can auto-detect your installed EFI boot loaders and it presents a pretty GUI menu of boot options
  • rEFInd goes beyond rEFIt in that rEFInd better handles systems with many boot loaders, gives better control over the boot loader search process, and provides the ability for users to define their own boot loader entries

rEFItMANAGERDEPRECATEDEFI/UEFIis the out-of-development predecessor to rEFInd
SYSLINUXLOADERDEPRECATED

EFI Stub LoaderLOADER

this program turns a Linux kernel into its own bootloader. This means that a boot manager can launch a Linux kernel, much as a boot loader could