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For the similarly-named bootloader which is one of the bootloaders that enable Old World PowerPC Macintoshes to boot native (i.e. non-MkLinux) Linux, see BootX (Linux).

BootX
DeveloperApple Inc.
ReleaseMarch 24, 2001 (with Mac OS X 10.0)
Operating systemDarwin & Mac OS X[3]
PlatformPowerPC[4]
TypeBoot loader
LicenseApple Public Source License[5]

BootX is a software-based bootloader designed and developed by Apple Inc. for use on the company's Macintosh (now Mac) computer range. BootX is used to prepare the computer for use, by loading all required device drivers and then starting-up Mac OS X by booting the kernel on all PowerPC Macs running Mac OS X.[6]

The Intel-based Macs introduced in 2006 have a Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) ROM, and use a UEFI-based bootloader named boot.efi rather than BootX.[4]

The program is freely available as part of the Darwin operating system under the open-source Apple Public Source License.[5]

History

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Old World boot icon

Older Macintoshes dating from 1983 until 1998 utilize a basic bootloader. Those Macintoshes include a ROM chip varying in sizes up to 4 megabytes (MB),[7] which contains both the computer code to boot the computer and the Macintosh Toolbox operating system code.

New World boot icon

In 1998, with the advent of the first iMac, the firmware was updated.[8] The ROM was reduced in size to 1 MB and was called BootROM, and the remainder of the ROM was moved to the file Mac OS ROM in the Mac OS System Folder, stored on the hard drive.[9] This ROM used a full implementation of the Open Firmware standard (contained in BootROM) and was named New World ROM;[10] while the boot-ROM part of the previous ROM was retroactively named Old World ROM.[9]

Old Mac OS X boot icon (10.1)

In 2001, with the release of Mac OS X 10.0, the Mac OS ROM file was replaced with the BootX bootloader file.[9] In 2002, with the release of Mac OS X 10.2, the historical "Happy Mac" start-up picture used since the first version of Classic Mac OS was replaced with a grey Apple logo.[1][2]

In 2006, with the introduction of Macs using Intel-based hardware, BootROM was replaced by the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) ROM (although Apple still calls it BootROM) and BootX is replaced by the boot.efi file.[4][11]

Features

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Mac OS X booting up in single-user mode

To make the boot loader appealing to other operating system developers, Apple added features to allow flexibility in the booting process such as network boot using TFTP and load Mach-O and ELF formatted kernels. BootX can also boot from HFS, HFS+, UFS and ext2 formatted volumes.[12] The boot loader can be manipulated at startup by holding down various key combinations to alter the booting process. Such functions include Verbose Mode, achieved by holding down the Command and V key at startup, which replaces the default Apple logo with text-based information on the boot process and Single User Mode, achieved by holding down the Command and S, which, depending on the operating system, may boot into a more basic command-line or text-based version of the operating system, to facilitate maintenance and recovery action.[13] The ROM can also be set to require a password to access these technical functions using the OpenFirmware interface.[14]

Boot process

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In PowerPC-based Macintoshes, the boot process starts with the activation of BootROM, the basic Macintosh ROM, which performs a Power On Self Test to test hardware essential to startup.[4] On the passing of this test, the startup chime is played and control of the computer is passed to OpenFirmware. OpenFirmware initializes the Random Access Memory, Memory Management Unit and hardware necessary for the ROM's operation. The OpenFirmware then checks settings, stored in NVRAM, and builds a list of all devices on a device tree by gathering their stored FCode information.[6]

On the completion of this task, BootX takes over the startup process configuring the keyboard and display, claiming and reserving memory for various purposes and checking to see if various key combinations are being pressed.[15] After this process has been completed BootX displays the grey Apple logo, spins the spinning wait cursor, and proceeds to load the kernel and some kernel extensions and start the kernel.[16]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Siracusa, John (September 5, 2002). "Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar". Ars Technica. p. 3. Retrieved January 26, 2016.
  2. ^ a b Markoff, John (August 26, 2002). "Compressed Data; Happy Mac Becomes an Icon of the Past". The New York Times. New York. Retrieved May 17, 2008.
  3. ^ BootX-81 on GitHub
  4. ^ a b c d "System Startup Programming Topics: The Boot Process". Apple Inc. February 8, 2007. Archived from the original on July 6, 2008. Retrieved May 1, 2008.
  5. ^ a b "Apple Public Source License". Apple Inc. August 6, 2003. Retrieved July 23, 2017.
  6. ^ a b Singh, Amit (2007) [2006]. "The Firmware and the Bootloader". Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach. Addison-Wesley. pp. 324–325. ISBN 978-0-321-27854-8. Retrieved May 3, 2008.
  7. ^ "Macintosh: ROM Size for Various Models". Apple Inc. August 23, 2000. Archived from the original on June 21, 2002. Retrieved May 15, 2008.
  8. ^ "Apple Announces Mac OS 9: The Best Internet OS Ever". Apple Inc. October 5, 1999. Archived from the original on December 17, 2008. Retrieved May 17, 2008.
  9. ^ a b c Singh, Amit (2007) [2006]. "The Firmware and the Bootloader". Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach. Addison-Wesley. pp. 267–268. ISBN 978-0-321-27854-8. Retrieved May 3, 2008.
  10. ^ "The Macintosh ROM and The NewWorld Architecture". Apple Inc. March 26, 1999. Archived from the original on September 24, 2004. Retrieved May 15, 2008.
  11. ^ "Apple Unveils New iMac with Intel Core Duo Processor" (Press release). Apple Inc. January 10, 2006. Retrieved October 20, 2019.
  12. ^ Gerbarg, Louis. "BootX: The Mac OS X Bootloader" (PDF). Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - Computer Science Department. pp. 7–8. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 9, 2007. Retrieved May 1, 2008.
  13. ^ "Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts". Apple Inc. October 17, 2007. Archived from the original on April 23, 2008. Retrieved May 2, 2008.
  14. ^ "Setting up firmware password protection in Mac OS X". Apple Inc. Retrieved May 3, 2008.
  15. ^ Tanous, Jim (September 29, 2014). "Booting Mac OS X". TekRevue. tekrevue.com. Retrieved September 29, 2014.
  16. ^ Tanous, Jim (September 29, 2014). "Mac OS X System Startup". TekRevue. tekrevue.com. Retrieved September 29, 2014.
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