Article notes
What is the first software program that runs when a computer starts?
A boot loader
What originated in 1995 when Erich Boleyn was trying to boot the GNU Hurd with the University of Utah's Mach 4 microkernel?
GRUB
What is the University of Utah's Mach 4 microkernel now known as?
GNU Mach
What did Erich and Brian Ford design because they were determined not to add to the large number of mutually-incompatible PC boot methods?
Multiboot Specification
What is a rewrite of GRUB that shares many characteristics with the previous version, now known as GRUB Legacy?
GRUB
"GRUB is basically a disk-based boot loader but also has network support."
What protocol can be used to load OS images from a network?
TFTP
What did Gordon Matzigkeit say is the most important software of all?
The boot loader
What is the more desirable distinct boot method of GRUB?
Load an operating system directly
What is a sequence of characters that GRUB considers to be a single unit?
A word
What is used in GRUB to remove the special meaning of certain characters or words?
Quoting
What is the distinct boot method of GRUB for when GRUB does not support the operating system natively?
Load a boot loader when then loads an operating system
When nobody understood what Gordon Matzigkeit was talking about, what word did he end up using as a pseudonym for GRUB?
GNU
What does GRUB use an advanced BIOS query technique in order to look for on a PC-compatible machine (and find all that has been installed)?
RAM
What spec is the primary requirement for GRUB to be compliant with?
Multiboot Specification
What did Erich and Brian Ford design because they were determined not to add to the large number of mutually-incompatible PC boot methods?
Multiboot Specification
What boot loader by the end of 2009 was to the point where multiple major distributions were installing it by default?
GRUB 2
What boot loader did Enrich realize he was better off writing his own?
FreeBSD
What is responsible for loading and transferring control to an operating system kernel software (such as Linux or GNU Mach)?
A boot loader
What understands filesystems and kernel executable formats so you can load an arbitrary operating system the way you like, without recording the physical position of your kernel on the disk?
GRUB
What gets control and then initializes the rest of the operating system (e.g. a GNU system)?
A kernel
What is the mechanism for loading unsupported operating systems by loading another boot loader (like DOS or Windows)?
chain-load