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(multiboot.info)Convenience to operating systems

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How to make OS development easier
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   OS images should be easy to generate. Ideally, an OS image should
simply be an ordinary 32-bit executable file in whatever file format the
operating system normally uses. It should be possible to `nm' or
disassemble OS images just like normal executables. Specialized tools
should not be required to create OS images in a _special_ file format.
If this means shifting some work from the operating system to a boot
loader, that is probably appropriate, because all the memory consumed
by the boot loader will typically be made available again after the
boot process is created, whereas every bit of code in the OS image
typically has to remain in memory forever. The operating system should
not have to worry about getting into 32-bit mode initially, because mode
switching code generally needs to be in the boot loader anyway in order
to load operating system data above the 1MB boundary, and forcing the
operating system to do this makes creation of OS images much more
difficult.

   Unfortunately, there is a horrendous variety of executable file
formats even among free Unix-like PC-based operating systems --
generally a different format for each operating system. Most of the
relevant free operating systems use some variant of a.out format, but
some are moving to ELF. It is highly desirable for boot loaders not to
have to be able to interpret all the different types of executable file
formats in existence in order to load the OS image -- otherwise the
boot loader effectively becomes operating system specific again.

   This specification adopts a compromise solution to this problem.
Multiboot-compliant OS images always contain a magic "Multiboot header"
(Note: OS image format), which allows the boot loader to load the
image without having to understand numerous a.out variants or other
executable formats. This magic header does not need to be at the very
beginning of the executable file, so kernel images can still conform to
the local a.out format variant in addition to being Multiboot-compliant.