Slackware Linux Moves to GNU GRUB

Patrick Volkerding, founder and BDFL (Benevolent Dictator For Life) of the SlackWare Linux project, has announced a major change in the distribution’s bootloader. SlackWare will now use GNU GRUB (Grand Unified Bootloader) instead of the previously used LILO and Elilo.

GNU GRUB supports the multiboot specification and can be used to load various operating systems directly and through chainloading.

This transition to GRUB will streamline the process of booting Slackware on hardware using BIOS and on systems that support the UEFI standard. Previously, systems with BIOS used the Lilo bootloader, which hasn’t seen active development in 8 years. For systems supporting UEFI, the Elilo version, initially created by Hewlett-Packard for the IA-64 platform and later ported for i386 and AMD64, was being used.