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(multiboot.info)Motivation

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The background of Multiboot Specification
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   Every operating system ever created tends to have its own boot
loader.  Installing a new operating system on a machine generally
involves installing a whole new set of boot mechanisms, each with
completely different install-time and boot-time user interfaces.
Getting multiple operating systems to coexist reliably on one machine
through typical "chaining" mechanisms can be a nightmare. There is
little or no choice of boot loaders for a particular operating system
-- if the one that comes with the operating system doesn't do exactly
what you want, or doesn't work on your machine, you're screwed.

   While we may not be able to fix this problem in existing commercial
operating systems, it shouldn't be too difficult for a few people in the
free operating system communities to put their heads together and solve
this problem for the popular free operating systems. That's what this
specification aims for. Basically, it specifies an interface between a
boot loader and a operating system, such that any complying boot loader
should be able to load any complying operating system. This
specification does _not_ specify how boot loaders should work -- only
how they must interface with the operating system being loaded.