Check out the comprehensive introduction to Das U-Boot: The Universal Boot Loader. U-Boot eases the pain of embedded board bring-up for new platforms running GNU/Linux.
Das U-Boot Surfaces — Open Source BIOS
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Slightly on-topic: I have recently replaced a dead hard drive in my PC. The 80 gigs I have now are more than enough for several operating systems. However, many OSes insist on having a primary partition, of which there can be only 4 on a PC. Can anyone point me to user friendly partitioning tools and bootloaders that will rewrite the partition table to one preset for the OS about to be booted?
I know there used to be XOSL, but it seems dead now.
I don’t now if naming a bootloader after one of the slowest movies in the history of film is such a good idea. I mean has anyone ever seen ALL of Das Boot?
You can have 4 Primary partitions PER disk not per PC.
If you are only going to use different windows versions, IE
Win2k, WinXP, Win2k3 and so on… then you just need to change the bootflag to point at the partition you want to boot. This can with several different programs. (They install their own boot menu.)
Then if you want to mix Linux & Windows, you could just use grub. But you have to google for info.. (involves copying the bootsector of the OS in question to a file and tell grub to use it.)
If it can be done with Das U-Boot I don’t know.
Btw, Isn’t this the bios AmigaOS4 is using?
offtopic:
I’ve been using “Partition Manager” for many years:
http://www.ranish.com/part/
You can find XOSL there aswell.
“”Btw, Isn’t this the bios AmigaOS4 is using?””
No it isn’t
The AmigaOne uses it as a bios however,
to boot either AmigaOS4 or Linux.
OS4 can boot without UBoot.
AmigaOne can’t.
Yeah you’re right… Brainfart on my behalf.
seeing examples in the article,
i can get a feeling of using OpenBoot on Sparc machines.
(it’s not actually the same – i don’t know any details much)
nice stuff
Hey! I loved Das boot, even if it was really long. I just watched the 3.5 hour director’s cut a couple of weeks ago, and it was awesome from beginning to end.
That said, I wish someone would release a bios replacement that would work on more than just a few selected server and embedded boards. I’d love to have something like this for my laptop.
Remember, we can’t spell userland without y.
Every fantasy I had that KDE was inspired by Kei of the Dirty Pair has been quashed.
Gnome…I can’t make new ones about those easily. And I need tiny craftspersons, really I do.
Perhaps we can name applications after bad reactions people have to various stimuli; the more aspiring applications can simply name themselves hate, sloth, spite, etc. whereas simple utilities will be named firing_into_uncleared_air, plumbing_overrun, etc. perhaps using deep dark unicode pages the user will have to map into to call the application.
…..as a hat full of windowmanagers.
Didn’t see that in the article. Boot loader yes, Bios no. Guess I might not have read it well though.
Hi, does somebody know where to download a binary image for ppc (10-100MB) suitable for pearpc?
I don’t have a mac or a powerpc and don’t want to compile linux from scratch with a cross compiler.
Maybe someone can help me?
P.S.: Sorry if it is a little off topic
Don’t use the dubbed languages on the DVD though.
I’ve been using Das U-Boot successfully with a embedded Power PC system. The boot loader is really great and makes it easy to boot Linux on a embedded device.
Das U-Boot is much faster then the film, it starts in a flash and is ready in a flash, when started from Flash ROM
@john:
If you can’t figure out how to compile it, then you don’t need it.
@all:
You can’t use Das U-Boot to start Windows on your home PC.
@Marcus Overhagen
Hey, if you think you are superclever, you are wrong.
Besides i do not need to figure how to compile a software
if i just want to see it running, that’s typical linux zealot thinking.
Don’t get offended so easily. Could be bad for your health
I am sure that what Marcus meant was along the following lines.
Das U-Boot is for embedded systems and their developers.
Someone dealing with embedded systems know how to compile your stuff.
Das U-Boot is not meant for the regular PC.