*BSD News Article 71613


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From: erich@uruk.org (Erich Boleyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.announce
Subject: GRUB beta, version 0.3 6/17/96
Followup-To: poster
Date: 20 Jun 1996 14:48:57 -0700
Organization: RainDrop Laboratories/Agora(sm)
Lines: 39
Sender: cgd@agate.berkeley.edu
Approved: netbsd-announce-request@agate.berkeley.edu
Message-ID: <4qch09$t4p@agate.berkeley.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: agate.berkeley.edu


For any interested, this is an announcement of both a new highly
flexible bootloader and a new boot information standard which it
supports.

First of all, the "Multiboot" proposal is an attempt to both make
a reasonably unified bootloader to OS interface, and to improve the
quality of those interfaces being used in the free software world.
A web page containing a full description can be found at:

	http://www.uruk.org/grub/boot-proposal.html

Secondly, the GRUB distribution is my attempt to provide generic
multi-OS booting functionality with all the functionality described
in the multiboot document plus some support for native FreeBSD, NetBSD,
Linux, and chainloading other OSes such as DOS/Windows/NT in a fashion
which is easy to use for beginners and highly functional for experts.
Information on GRUB can be found at:

	http://www.uruk.org/grub/

The documentation here and in the multiboot proposal is also very
useful to prospective OS and bootloader writers for PCs.  Several
of the techniques used in GRUB have no analogue in the free software
world, and a few are apparently superior to proprietary OSes as well.

The beta release of GRUB can be retrieved from:

	ftp://ftp.uruk.org/public/grub/grub-960617.tar.gz

It is available under the GNU General Public License, which should
be OK for the BSD folks since it is a separate executable.

-- 
  Erich Stefan Boleyn                 \_ E-mail (preferred):  <erich@uruk.org>
Mad Genius wanna-be, CyberMuffin        \__      (finger me for other stats)
Web:  http://www.uruk.org/~erich/     Motto: "I'll live forever or die trying"
  This is my home system, so I'm speaking only for myself, not for Intel.