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Description

The Plop Boot Manager Six (PBM6) is a new boot manager. It is still a test release, so be careful. Find more information in the Development Blog.

1. Screenshots

2. Download

Warning - It's possible to lose data! Use it at your own risk. See the LICENCE file!

Donations are rare and welcome: Donate

pbm6-test-20200408.zip (latest)
pbm6-test-20200319.zip

3. Instructions

Known issues: A lot, its a test release. find more information in the Development Blog.

What should work:

• IDE: Hard disks, CD/DVD drives.
• SATA: Hard disks, CD/DVD drives.
• USB Controller: USB 1.1 UHCI/OHCI, USB 2.0 EHCI, USB 3.0 xHCI support.
• USB Device support for keyboard, HUB, thumb drives, hard disks, CD/DVD drives.
• USB read/write support.
• USB Hot-Plug.
• Boot drive partition.
• Start drive MBR.
• Boot CD/DVD in no-emulation mode.
• Eject CD/DVD.
• Show drive infos.
• Change screen resolution, also wide screen.
• Start PMB6 from Floppy, CD/DVD drive, network, Linux Boot Managers, Windows Boot Menu (Vista/7/8/10).

Some notes:

Main Menu: When you select a drive with "Enter", then the boot partition of the hard disk or the CD from the drive will be booted.
When you press the right key on a menu item that has the sign ">", then you open a Sub Menu.

Sub Menu hard disk: You can boot the MBR. You can choose a partition to boot. You can view some drive information.

Sub Menu CD/DVD: You can eject the disc. You can view some drive information.

Minimum requirements: CPU i386, 46 MB RAM.

Starting the boot manager

• Floppy - A classic way. Write the floppy image to the floppy disk with "dd" or "rawwrite.exe".
• CDROM - A classic way. Burn the ISO to the CDROM/DVD and boot.
• ISO - Use the ISO to start the boot manager in a virtual machine.
• Like a Linux Kernel - As the Plop Boot Manager 5, PBM6 can be started like a Linux Kernel from a Linux Boot Manager like LILO, GRUB and Syslinux (also from network).
• Windows Boot Menu - Now its possible to start the boot manager directly from the Windows Boot Menu without workarounds like plpbt4win. You have to use "bcdedit". Its tested only on (NOT UEFI installed!) Windows 10.

Instructions for Linux Boot Managers

PBM6 can be started like a Linux Kernel by linux loaders. You can start it over the network with Syslinux in the same ways as Plop Boot Manager 5.

SYSLINUX

You can start PBM6 with the keyword "linux" and "kernel".

Examples:

label pbm6
    menu label ^Plop Boot Manager 6
    linux plop/pbm6


label plp6
    menu label ^Plop Boot Manager 6
    kernel plop/pbm6

GRUB2

You can start PBM6 with the keyword "linux" and "linux16".

Examples:

menuentry "Plop Boot Manager 6" {
    linux16 /boot/plop/pbm6
}

OR

menuentry "Plop Boot Manager 6" {
    linux /boot/plop/pbm6
}

See also https://www.plop.at/en/ploplinux/desktop/grub2.html

Example /etc/grub.d/40_custom

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,1)'


menuentry "Plop Linux" {
    linux /boot/bzImage root=/dev/sda1
}

menuentry "Plop Boot Manager 5" {
    linux16 /boot/plop/plpbt.bin
}

menuentry "Plop Boot Manager 6" {
    linux /boot/plop/pbm6
}

menuentry "PlopKexec" {
    linux /boot/plop/plopkexec
}

menuentry "Memtest" {
    linux16 /boot/memtest/memtest
}    

LILO

Example:

image=/boot/plop/pbm6
label="Plop Boot Manager 6"

Instructions for Windows Vista/7/8/10

UEFI is NOT supported at the moment and will end in an error!

Copy "pbm6nt" to c:\

Add to Windows Boot Menu:
=========================

Open the Command Prompt as "Administrator"

Run the following commands:
bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d "PBM6"
bcdedit /set {ntldr} device boot
bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=c:
bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \pbm6nt
bcdedit /displayorder {ntldr} /addlast

Remove the entry:
=================

Warning! Be careful with this command!

bcdedit /delete {ntldr} /f

4. PC Speaker

PBM6 has PC Speaker support for a simple screen reader and notifications. This will help blind and visually impaired people to use the boot manager. The Morse Code is used for the text.

There is a sound notification when the boot manager is ready to use.

In the main menu, you hear a short information with two chars. For boot entries, the first char is the drive type and the second char is the bus type. Example: Hard disk IDE is HI. CD-ROM SATA is CS. Hard disk USB is HU.

Static menu entries: Setup is SE. About is AB. Shutdown is SH.

With a hotkey, you hear the whole text of the menu entry.

Attaching and removing an USB drive gives a notification sound.

The PC Speaker feature will be available in the next Test Version.

Use CTRL-F5 to enable/disable the PC Speaker support. Pressing F5 will beep the current text as Morse Code.

Demonstration video:

Download as MP3: pbm6-pcspeaker.mp3

Download as text: pbm6-pcspeaker.txt

© 2020 by Elmar Hanlhofer