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Idea #258: new boot loader idea

bug This idea is a duplicate of Idea #21: Professional-looking bootloader.
Written by chris4585 the 28 Feb 08 at 23:58. Category: System. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: New
Rationale
I'm not sure how this could be done, but i've always ponded about making a boot loader that would start off with a mouse, and selecting your system. Like how GDM (can) use a list of users, why not use a list of operating systems displayed in a graphical way? or even have a password once you selected your system to boot, and also have a button to display the other kernels or memtest

You can set a few Icons for the systems you may have, like a windows icon for xp if you have installed, or ubuntu logo icon, debian, opensuse, fedora etc.. and you could even add your own icon of course

The reason i say to have the power to put a password on booting up the system from that boot loader is because in grub there is a exploit that can let anyone load into admin bash and create a new password and do as they please..
Tags: grub

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Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #258
Written by chris4585 the 28 Feb 08 at 23:58.
Ubuntu Brainstorm was updated in January 2009. Since the idea #258 was submitted before this update, its rationale and solution are not separated. Please vote accordingly, and if you have the necessary rights, please separate the rationale from the solution. Thanks!

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Kovensky wrote on the 4 Mar 08 at 16:50
Bootloaders this complex would be very difficult to create. Maybe GRUB2 will support this, maybe not.

Just for the mouse part, you would need to implement a mouse driver. You don't have any userland libraries at your disposal, so you can't just bring in GPM. You would need to re-implement every mouse driver in GPM.

There is already vesa framebuffer support on GRUB, but everything else is yet to be done.

qinjuehang wrote on the 5 Mar 08 at 21:52
I think this hypothetical bootloader would be almost an OS in its own right. Imagine booting times. If you have unsupported OSes that use chainloading, even worse.

goodevilgenius wrote on the 8 Mar 08 at 01:48
You're looking for GAG: The Graphical Boot Manager
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAG_%28boot_loader%29

It still reguires GRUB or LILO to be installed on a partition to boot into Linux, though, but it has everything your talking about: icons for each OS, and password protection.

photonian wrote on the 28 Jan 11 at 20:12
You might like SBM = Smart BootManager
http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/


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