GNU/Linux is often viewed as a single operating system, but it is actually a collection of interchangeable components working together. To truly understand how a GNU/Linux system operates, it is best to explore it from the moment you press the power button to the second you open your web browser. This series breaks down the core software components of your computer, it details the available options, customizations, and tweaks.
Introduction We discussed earlier the objective of the firmware which was to test the hardware and run the bootloader. The bootloader is a small program that has one objective, to load the kernel properly in RAM hand control to it.
GRUB (GRand Unified Bootloader) is one of the most popular bootloaders available for GNU/Linux, other options like systemd-boot also exist which are more lightweight.
Introduction In this series, I will try to explain how your system (specifically Linux) is booted from the moment you press that power button until you see your desktop environment. I will also highlight the different software available for each task/step and what customization you can apply.
The firmware is the first software to be loaded once you power on your machine, this software exists in your motherboard itself and it usually is proprietary and hard to replace as the motherboard manufacturers don't share the internals of their chips.
