GhostBSD Boot Process

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Introduction

The process of starting a computer and loading the operating system is referred to as “the bootstrap process”, or “booting”. The GhostBSD boot process provides a great deal of flexibility in customizing what happens when the system starts, including the ability to select from different operating systems installed on the same computer, different versions of the same operating system, or a different installed kernel.

The GhostBSD boot process differs from the FreeBSD boot process. On this page we will show you the similarities and differences.

GhostBSD Boot Process

Turning on a computer

On x86 hardware

The Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) is responsible for loading the operating system. The BIOS looks on the hard disk for the Master Boot Record (MBR), which must be located in a specific place on the disk. The BIOS has enough knowledge to load and run the MBR, and assumes that the MBR can then carry out the rest of the tasks involved in loading the operating system, possibly with the help of the BIOS.

The code within the MBR (/boot/mbr ) is typically referred to as a boot manager, especially when it interacts with the user. The boot manager usually has more code in the first track of the disk or within the file system. Examples of boot managers include the standard GhostBSD/FreeBSD boot manager /boot/boot0, also called Boot Easy, and Grub, which is used by many Linux® distributions.