kexecboot
Kexecboot is a nice Linux-As-a-Bootloader implementation based on kexec (by kexecboot)
micronucleus
ATTiny usb bootloader with a strong emphasis on bootloader compactness. (by micronucleus)
kexecboot | micronucleus | |
---|---|---|
2 | 3 | |
105 | 1,636 | |
1.0% | 0.6% | |
3.4 | 2.5 | |
about 1 year ago | 3 months ago | |
C | C | |
GNU General Public License v3.0 only | GNU General Public License v3.0 or later |
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.
kexecboot
Posts with mentions or reviews of kexecboot.
We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives
and similar projects.
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Perfectly Good MacBooks From 2020 Are Being Sold for Scrap Because of Activation Lock - It's almost impossible to resell a perfectly functional M1 MacBook because of Apple's security features.
You're literally just making stuff up now. Once a hypervisor is loaded you're booted. You can then spin up VMs that go through the boot process excluding hardware initialization. Or you can do something like kexec on Linux. You can also use a Linux based bootloader like kexecboot (https://github.com/kexecboot/kexecboot). This isn't a "stage three" bootlaoder. That literally doesn't exist and doesn't make sense.
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Linux kernel Panic
And there are also projects trying to reuse Linux kernel code for bootloading itself to reduce this reimplementation madness e.g. https://github.com/kexecboot/kexecboot and https://archive.fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/ema_boot_linux_only/
micronucleus
Posts with mentions or reviews of micronucleus.
We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives
and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-03-03.
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Building the worlds jankiest serial to USB cable from scavenged parts
You can actually bit-bang low speed USB on Arduino [0]. There is even a bootloader [1] for ATtiny. It is obviously not compatible with Arduino, but those tiny boards look too cute to ignore [2]. Also, you can use USB port both for downloading firmware and your application.
[0] https://github.com/obdev/v-usb
[1] https://github.com/micronucleus/micronucleus
[2] https://cpldcpu.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/the-nanite-85/
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Emulator of Original Dell Charger Using ATTINY85
The Digispark[1] and its clones use the ATTINY85 and offer flashing over USB via the Micronucleus bootloader[2] using V-USB[3]. It comes at the cost of a significant chunk of flash storage, but the convenience is excellent. Plus, V-USB support means you can emulate all sorts of USB devices. I've used it to build a DIY NES controller adapter, but it's commonly used as a cheap Rubber Ducky[4]. For projects where USB interfacing makes sense, it can be a good fit.
1: http://digistump.com/products/1
2: https://github.com/micronucleus/micronucleus
3: https://www.obdev.at/products/vusb/index.html
4: https://shop.hak5.org/products/usb-rubber-ducky-deluxe
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Writing bootloader to practice programming skills?
So it looks like they're using the micronucleus bootloader for the linked example. That bootloader not only does the normal bootloader job, but also acts as a bitbanging USB device in order to communicate with the computer over USB. The USB bitbanging is a huge endeavor to undertake on top of writing a bootloader.
What are some alternatives?
When comparing kexecboot and micronucleus you can also consider the following projects:
u-boot_mod - U-Boot 1.1.4 modification for routers
HoodLoader2 - 16u2 Bootloader to reprogram 16u2 + 328/2560 with Arduino IDE