Booting

thumb|A flow diagram of a computer booting

special type of boot sector at the very beginning of partitioned computer mass storage devices

process performed by firmware or software routines immediately after a computer or other digital electronic device is powered on

portion of disk space containing the default operations.

thumb|300px|rEFInd Boot Manager, with entries for [[openSUSE Tumbleweed (one is GRUB and another is kernel EFI stub) and Windows 11, an example of dual booting]] thumb|300px|GNU GRUB|GRUB, with entries for [[Ubuntu and Windows Vista, another example of dual booting]] Multi-booting is the act of installing multiple operating systems on a single computer, and being able to choose which one to boot. The term dual-booting refers to the common configuration of specifically two operating systems. Multi-booting may require a custom boot loader.

special mode of a computer operating system or application software with reduced functionality, for the purposes of diagnostics, troubleshooting or recovery

standard for the layout of the partition table on a physical storage device used in a desktop or server PC

set of software routines that emulate platform-specific details, giving programs direct access to hardware resources in a device-independent, high performance manner

In computing, rebooting is the process by which a running computer system is restarted, either intentionally or unintentionally. Reboots can be either a cold reboot (alternatively known as a hard reboot) in which the power to the system is physically turned off and back on again (causing an initial boot of the machine); or a warm reboot (or soft reboot) in which the system restarts while still powered up. The term restart (as a system command) is used to refer to a reboot when the operating system closes all programs and finalizes all pending input and output operations before initiating a sof

closed-source device driver published only as binary code

bootsplash for Linux

temporary root file system loaded during early boot of Linux operating system

Fastboot is a communication protocol used primarily with Android devices. It is implemented in a command-line interface tool of the same name and as a mode of the bootloader of Android devices. The tool is included with the Android SDK package and used primarily to modify the flash filesystem via a USB connection from a host computer. It requires that the device be started in Fastboot mode. If the mode is enabled, it will accept a specific set of commands, sent through USB bulk transfers. Fastboot on some devices allows unlocking the bootloader, and subsequently, enables installing custom reco

subsidiary partition table in the MBR partitioning scheme

thumb |250px |Boot screen of Ubuntu (operating system)|Ubuntu Karmic Koala v9.10 A bootsplash, also known as a boot screen, is a graphical representation of the boot process of the operating system.

mode on Android operating system for installing system updates

partition on a data storage device that is used by computers adhering to the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface

Usplash is a software project in the Ubuntu community. Historically, scrolling text "verbose mode" has typically appeared on Linux computers during boot. Usplash replaces the scrolling-text screens with a graphical splash screen. It was designed to replace Bootsplash, which did the same thing on the kernel space level. Since usplash operates in user space, it can be updated without recompiling the kernel.

method of executing programs directly from long-term storage

utility software developed by Samsung to recover Android devices

boot sector of non-partitioned media in IBM PC compatible systems

software needed to operate motherboards

In computing, instant-on is the ability to boot nearly instantly, allowing to go online or to use a specific application without waiting for a PC's traditional operating system to launch. Instant-on technology is today mostly used on laptops, netbooks, and nettops because the user can boot up one program, instead of waiting for the PC's operating system to boot. This allows a user to launch a single program, such as a movie-playing program or a web browser, without the need of the whole operating system. There still remain a few true instant-on machines such as the Atari ST, as described in th

computing terms for disk partitions

Feature on Qualcomm-based SoCs

software

standard specifying a file format for bootable kernels and requirements for boot loaders that execute them