4 Best Linux Boot programs

Guide

When you turn on your machine, the BIOS (basic input and output system) immediately locates the configured boot media and reads some commands from the MBR (Master boot Record) or GUID (globally unique identifier) partition table, which is the first 512 bytes of the boot media. The Master boot Record (MBR) contains two important sets of information, the first of which is the bootstrapper, and the second is the partitioned table.

What is a boot program?

The bootstrapper ( is a small program stored in the MBR (Master boot Record) or GUID (globally unique identifier) partition table that is used to help load the operating system into memory. Without the boot program, your operating system will not be able to load into memory.

There are some boot programs that we can install to the system with Linux, and in this article I'll briefly talk about some of the best Linux boot programs to work with Linux.

Excellent boot program 1. GNU GRUB

GNU Grub is a very popular, and probably the most used, multi-boot Linux boot program based on the original Eirch Stefan Broleyn invented by GRUB (Unification Boot Program ()). GNU GRUB enhances the original grub, bringing some improvements, new features, and bug fixes.

It is important that Grub 2 has now replaced Grub. It is worth noting that the name Grub was renamed as Grub Legacy, but was not actively developed, however, it could be used to boot the old system as the bug fixes continue.

GRUB has some of the following notable features:

1. Multi-boot support
2. supports a variety of hardware architectures and operating systems, such as Linux and Windows
3. Provides a Bash-like interactive command-line interface that allows users to run the GRUB command to interact with the configuration file
4. Allow access to the GRUB editor
5. Supports setting encryption password to ensure security
6. Support for booting from the network, as well as some minor features

Visit Homepage: https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/

2. LILO

LILO (Linux Boot program ()) is a simple but powerful and very stable Linux boot program. Because GRUB has improved a lot and has added many powerful features that are becoming more popular, LILO is no longer popular among Linux users.

When Lilo boots, the word "LILO" appears on the screen, and each letter appears before and after a particular event occurs. However, since December 2015, the development of LILO has stopped, and it has many features such as the following:

1. No interactive command line interface available
2. Support for some error codes
3. Network boot not supported (LCTT: its variant ELILO supports TFTP/DHCP boot)
4. All files are stored on the first 1024 cylinders of the drive
5. Faced with Btfs, GTP, RAID and other restrictions

Visit Homepage: http://lilo.alioth.debian.org/

3. BURG-New Boot program

Based on Grub,burg is a relatively new boot program that was discontinued in 2011. Since BURG originates from grub, it has some of the main features of Grub. Nonetheless, BURG offers some great features, such as a new object format that can support a variety of platforms including Linux, Windows, Mac OS, FreeBSD, and more.

In addition, BURG supports highly configurable text and icon-mode boot menus, and plans to add "stream" support for future work with different input/output devices.

Visit Homepage: Https://launchpad.net/burg

4. Syslinux

Syslinux is a lightweight boot program that can be booted from an optical drive, network, and so on. Syslinux supports file systems such as FAT on MS-DOS, ext2 on Linux, Ext3, Ext4, and so on. Syslinux also supports Btrfs on a single device that is not compressed.

Note Because Syslinux can only access files on its own partition, it does not have multiple file system boot capabilities.

Visit Homepage: http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_Syslinux_Project

Conclusion

A bootloader allows you to manage multiple operating systems on your machine and choose one to use at some time. Without the bootloader, your machine will not be able to load the rest of the kernel and the operating system.

Have we missed out on any of the best-of-breed Linux boot programs? If let us know, please fill in the comment form below to the recommended Linux system boot program.

4 Best Linux Boot programs