Intro to Boot Loaders

Boot loaders are the software that startup operating systems when you power on your computer. Normally, boot loaders do their job without you being aware of them. However, when you install two or more operating systems on your computer you need to configure your boot loader so you can choose which operating system to load. This is often called dual-booting when you have two operating systems installed. Even if you're only running one operating system, a boot loader gives you an opportunity to pass information to the operating system when it boots up.

Boot loaders run before any operating system is loaded, so they're independent of operating systems. Any boot loader should be able to boot any operating systems. Regardless of whether you're running Windows, Linux, Unix, etc. you should be able to use the boot loader of your choice.

This course covers Open Source boot loaders. Emphasis will be placed on Grub but Lilo, syslinux, and isolinux are also covered.

Prerequisites

You should have a basic understanding of computers and a general knowledge of personal computers.