Yaboot


Yaboot is a bootloader for PowerPC-based hardware running Linux.
WWW Official Site

History

In 2009, maintenance by Paul Nasrat was handed over to Tony Breeds.

Hardware support

Support includes the New World ROM Macintosh and IBM RS/6000 systems. It does not support the "OldWorld" PowerMacs.

Booting procedure

It is built to run within the Open Firmware layer common to most such systems instead of working as a Mac OS 9 program like its predecessor BootX.
Yaboot is similar to LILO and GNU GRUB. Yaboot uses the following steps to boot:
  1. Yaboot is invoked by Open Firmware
  2. Finds a boot device, boot path and opens boot partition
  3. Opens /etc/yaboot.conf or a command shell
  4. Loads image or kernel and initrd
  5. Executes image