Free boot loaders

boot loader package

boot loader

multi-platform free software boot loader

The Syslinux Project is a discontinued suite of five different bootloaders for starting up Linux distributions on computers. It was primarily developed by H. Peter Anvin.

loadlin is a Linux boot loader that runs under 16-bit real-mode DOS (including the MS-DOS mode of Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me startup disk). It allows the Linux system to load and replace the running DOS without altering existing DOS system files.

iPXE is an open-source implementation of the Preboot eXecution Environment (PXE) client software and bootloader, created in 2010 as a fork of gPXE (gPXE was named Etherboot until 2008). It can be used to enable computers without built-in PXE capability to boot from the network, or to provide additional features beyond what built-in PXE provides.

RedBoot (an acronym for Red Hat Embedded Debug and Bootstrap firmware) is an open-source application that uses the eCos real-time operating system Hardware Abstraction Layer to provide bootstrap firmware for embedded systems.

systemd-boot is a free and open-source boot manager, previously known as gummiboot.

rEFInd is a boot manager for UEFI and EFI-based machines. It can be used to boot multiple operating systems that are installed on a single non-volatile device. It also provides a way to launch UEFI applications.

Barebox is a primary boot loader used in embedded devices. It is free software under the GPL-2.0-only license. It is available for a number of different computer architectures, including ARM, x86, MIPS and RISC-V.