Bootloaders

yaboot

The yaboot bootloader is used on New World Power Macs, pSeries, and other less-common systems such as CHRP, Pegasos, and briQ.

BootX

BootX is a Mac OS-based bootloader which is only usable on Old World Power Macs. It requires a bootable Mac OS installation.

The Mac OS X bootloader is also called BootX. These are very different programs written by different people, with an unfortunate namespace collision.

quik

quik is an Open Firmware-based bootloader used on Old World Power Macs and Apple Network Servers. Unfortunately those systems have buggy implementations of Open Firmware, and so dealing with an OF-based bootloader (in contrast to BootX) can be a frustrating experience.

It is also possible to use quik on pSeries and CHRP, but yaboot is better so nobody does this.