Limine 9.0 is out today as the newest major release for this open-source modern multi-protocol bootloader and boot manager. Limine also boasts its own Limine Boot Protocol in addition to the native Linux support and chainloading/multiboot capabilities.

One change that will surprise some readers is Limine 9.0 doing away with EXT4 file-system support as well as older EXT2 and EXT3 support. The change-log notes of dropping the EXT4 file-system support:

"Support for the ext2/3/4 filesystems has been once again dropped due to lack of maintenance and to avoid extra potential attack surface during Secure Boot Limine usage."

[1]This commit is what goes ahead and drops the EXT4/EXT3/EXT2 support, which was previously considered experimental. Limine instead is focusing on the FAT32 file-system support and ISO9660 for boot medium storage.

Limine 9.0 also does away with its legacy configuration format, drops support for the chainload-next protocol, adds a new version of the Limine Boot Protocol, adds support for the MONITOR/MWAIT CPU instructions, and other updates.

Downloads and more details on the Limine 9.0 release via [2]GitHub .



[1] https://github.com/limine-bootloader/limine/commit/281972e90c13cd6d16b16967da5a4cbb364d95ee

[2] https://github.com/limine-bootloader/limine/releases/tag/v9.0.0