Boot Manager: A term apparently ripped from IBM's old OS/2 "Boot Manager", this refers to program which provides a computer's user with an interface to assist them in choosing between the operating systems or OS [kernel] versions available on the partitions of their machine's hard disk.

According to the IBM DeveloperWorks Linux tutorials, "boot management" is the last step in "Setting up a multi-boot machine with Linux and other operating system".

A boot management program is "installed in the MBR of the primary hard drive, replacing the [original] OS boot program that would otherwise simply select the active partition and load whatever OS boot program is in the root superblock.

Examples include Boot Manager from IBM, System Commander, BootMagic, the Windows NT's boot loader, LILO and, more recently for Linux, GRUB.

Darn, with a claim like this: 'term apparently ripped from IBM's old OS/2 "Boot Manager"', now I have to consider doing some research to see if IBM really originated the term / concept.

Contributors

• JasoK - 20 Jan 2002
• MacADd - 19 Mar 2002
• RandyKramer - 27 Nov 2003
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