systemd-boot is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

boot manager, previously known as gummiboot.

gummiboot

gummiboot was developed by the

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...

employees

Kay Sievers Kay Sievers is a German computer programmer, best known for developing the udev device manager of Linux, systemd and the Gummiboot EFI bootloader. Kay Sievers made major contributions to Linux's hardware hotplug and device management subsystems ...

and Harald Hoyer and designed as a minimal alternative to

GNU GRUB GNU GRUB (short for GNU GRand Unified Bootloader, commonly referred to as GRUB) is a boot loader package from the GNU Project. GRUB is the reference implementation of the Free Software Foundation's Multiboot Specification, which provides a use ...

for systems using the

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI, as an acronym) is a Specification (technical standard), specification for the firmware Software architecture, architecture of a computing platform. When a computer booting, is powered on, the UEFI ...

(UEFI). The boot loader automatically detected bootable images (including

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

s and other boot loaders), did not require a configuration file, provided a basic menu-based interface, and could also integrate with systemd to provide performance data. As a

word play Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, ph ...

, the name "gummiboot" means " rubber (inflatable) boat" in German, the native language of its initial developers. Despite being developed by two of its employees, Red Hat's Fedora Project did not use gummiboot for booting UEFI systems; instead, it used efilinux to chainload GRUB. gummiboot was licensed under LGPL-2.1-or-later, unlike GRUB which is licensed under the GPL-3.0-or-later. This distinction was intended to allow gummiboot to be suitable for use on UEFI systems implementing secure boot, due to concerns surrounding its requirement to distribute all authorization keys (

digital certificate In cryptography, a public key certificate, also known as a digital certificate or identity certificate, is an electronic document used to prove the validity of a public key. The certificate includes the public key and information about it, informa ...

s) needed to run GPL-v3-licensed software if hardware restrictions such as secure boot are in effect. In May 2015, gummiboot was merged into

systemd systemd is a software suite that provides an array of system components for Linux operating systems. The main aim is to unify service configuration and behavior across Linux distributions. Its primary component is a "system and service manage ...

and renamed to "systemd-boot".

References

{{reflist

External links

systemd-boot(7)
-

Manual page A man page (short for manual page) is a form of software documentation found on Unix and Unix-like operating systems. Topics covered include programs, system libraries, system calls, and sometimes local system details. The local host administra ...

Free boot loaders Free software programmed in C Linux kernel-related software Linux-only free software

gummiboot

See also

References

External links