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Linux Bootloaders

This section contains information and pointers to boot loaders which can be used to load and run Linux kernels on ARM based platforms. This is by no means exhaustive, but is aimed at giving initial pointers to developers. Please, feel free to update this list if you use a boot loader which is not included in this list and works on an ARM based platform (indicating whether it is generic or only works on a limited set of boards/processors).

The following page maintained by Russell King provide a very good starting point describing the various steps of the boot process of the Linux kernel on ARM platforms. Further examples and implementation guidance can be found at Vincent Sanders' article on Booting ARM Linux.

Additional documents:

Alphabetical Index

Apex

an extremely small and robust bootloader for arm devices. currently supports LH79520, LH79524, LH7A400?, LH7A404?, IXP42x (e.g. Linksys NSLU2), and S3C2410?.

Blob

a basic arm bootloader designed originally for the LART board. very flexible and hackable. Blob developement has slowed considerably as more developers have moved to custom bootloaders or items like Apex or U-Boot.

RedBoot

RedBoot is a bootstrap environment for embedded systems developed by eCosCentric. It is used for both product development (debug support) and in deployed products in the field (Flash update and network booting). It is also an eCos application that uses a minimal kernel-less configuration of eCos consisting of only the eCos Hardware Abstraction Layer.

U-Boot

U-Boot is designed to be a small and efficient boot loader that can easily be ported and debugged to new architectures and hardware platforms. It provides serial console output as well as loading of images via network links and writing onto Flash. A Wiki based documentation is available on the following pages.
ARM supplied development boards page How to submit (and obtain) patches for U-Boot for boards which have ARM core processors.
 
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