README

Limine 


    


 What is Limine?

Limine (pronounced as demonstrated here)
is a modern, secure, portable, multiprotocol bootloader and boot manager, also used
as the reference implementation for the Limine boot protocol.

 Community and Support

 Community
We have a Matrix room at limine:matrix.org if you need support, info, or you just want to hang out with us.

 Limine's boot menu

!Reference screenshot

Photo by Levent Simsek

 Supported architectures
 IA-32 (32-bit x86)
 x86-64
 aarch64 (arm64)
 riscv64
 loongarch64

 Supported boot protocols
 Linux
 Limine
 Multiboot 1
 Multiboot 2
 Chainloading

 Supported partitioning schemes
 MBR
 GPT
 Unpartitioned media

 Supported filesystems
 FAT12/16/32
 ISO9660 (CDs/DVDs)

If your filesystem isn't listed here, please read the FAQ first, especially before
opening issues or pull requests related to this.

 Minimum system requirements
For 32-bit x86 systems, support is only ensured starting with those with
Pentium Pro (i686) class CPUs.

All x86-64, aarch64, riscv64 and loongarch64 (UEFI) systems are supported.

 Packaging status

All Limine releases since 7.x use Semantic Versioning for their naming.



 Binary releases

For convenience, for point releases, binaries are distributed. These binaries
are shipped as assets as part of the
Limine GitHub releases
(see the limine-binary- files).

The limine host tool is shipped in highly portable source form as part of the
binary release package. For most/all UNIX-like OSes, in order to rebuild it,
simply run make in the unpacked binary release directory. Alternatively, it
can be built stand-alone using any C99 compatible compiler.

limine host tool binaries for x86 Windows are provided as part of the binary
release package.

 Build and Install Instructions

The following steps are not necessary if using a binary release.

See INSTALL.md.

 Usage

See USAGE.md.

 3rd Party Software Acknowledgments

See 3RDPARTY.md.