David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote:
> 
> If that's the reason, then certainly you should be able to enlighten
> us more on *why* it's good.

GRUB brings the x86 bootloader up to and possibly beyond the level of the
Linux bootloaders on other architectures (MILO on Alpha, SILO on Sparc).

GRUB can understand the ext2 filesystem, so if you overwrite your kernel
with a new version, or just change a symbolic link when you get a new
kernel, there's no need to re-create the bootloader.

It also allows you to browse around the filesystem, and has nice things
like tab-completion of filenames and devices..  It's probably the best
bootloader for a mixed IDE/SCSI system (though there probably aren't too
many of those floating around).

My only complaint would be that GRUB is still a multi-stage bootloader,
meaning that part of it exists at the head of your disk or partition. 
This little startup pice loads the (bigger) second stage from a file on a
partition somewhere.  If the file gets moved or deleted, the system
probably won't boot.

-- 
 _  _  _  _ _  ___    _ _  _  ___ _ _  __   I'm a firm believer in 
/ \/ \(_)| ' // ._\  / - \(_)/ ./| ' /(__   the idea of a ruling  
\_||_/|_||_|_\\___/  \_-_/|_|\__\|_|_\ __)  class, since I rule. 
[ Mike Hicks | http://umn.edu/~hick0088/ | mailto:hick0088 at tc.umn.edu ]
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