Bootloaders and the Linux Booti!
Ever heard of a Bootloader? Its that software thing that boots all that software running on computer hardware. Well why is that so important? Hmm, Bootloaders are really important because if you mess up the Bootloader software on your laptop or PC, you are gonna have a hell of a time getting it fixed, for experts not a problem but for novices, it really is a pain in the back.
Anyways, I just liked the idea of blogging about this book I bought some time ago titled, “Embedded Linux Primer: Bootloaders - Prentice Hall”. You can also read a free chapter from the book by Christopher Hallinan on the InformIT website
Just for all of you who are really lazy to visit the website, I will paste here what the book says about a Bootloader:
“When power is first applied to a processor board, many elements of hardware must be initialized before even the simplest program can run. Each architecture and processor has a set of predefined actions and configurations, which include fetching some initialization code from an on-board storage device (usually Flash memory). This early initialization code is part of the bootloader and is responsible for breathing life into the processor and related hardware components.”
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