Analyzing the Linux boot process (opensource.com)

Alison Chaiken looksin detail at how the kernel boots on opensource.com."Besides starting buggy spyware, what function does early bootfirmware serve? The job of a bootloader is to make available to a newlypowered processor the resources it needs to run a general-purpose operatingsystem like Linux. At power-on, there not only is no virtual memory, but noDRAM until its controller is brought up."