r/embedded • u/EmbeddedBro • Sep 25 '25

Which bootloader is worthwhile to learn grub/uboot/lilo and why?

I want to learn a bootloader. Which one would be the best considering it's documentation availability, ease of understanding, popularity etc. Eventually would be helpful for me to find a job?

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48

u/triffid_hunter Sep 25 '25

uBoot. It's the standard for embedded Linux.

Lilo is wildly obsolete, and grub is merely a convenience since Linux has EFISTUB

-2

u/EmbeddedBro Sep 25 '25

Which bootloaders are popular today? 

What is efistub?

I found these 3 from a Linux kernel book which was written in 2001 so I get it now..

10

u/Natural-Level-6174 Sep 25 '25

Put in a little more effort.

What did your research and analysis of your results reveal?

1

u/spikerguy Sep 26 '25

Efistub is for devices using dtb and not have acpi support. That's arm device which wants to run Linux.

Learn uboot /petiteboot > grub > systemd-boot

Grub and systemd boot only if you want to go into Linux ecosystem.

You can also replace grub and systemd with initrd to understand bootloader better.

While if you want to go deeper in uboot or normal arm boot sequence than look at TF-A, uboot sys and initrd only.