The bootloader environment consists of a set of libraries that provide various features and a couple small driver programs that build against these libraries. The libraries used come from three categories -- generic (containing code useful to any bootloader), architecture (containing code useful to a specific cpu, system-on-chip, etc), and board (containing code useful to a single specific device) For the purpose of this discussion, we will involve the fictional companies Outstanding Electronics Manufacturing (OEM) and Silicon Engineering Management, Inc (SEMI). OEM produces the quality Brick mobile device using SEMI's 65002 ARM-based system-on-chip. Common bootloader libraries and base architectures: boot/include/boot headers boot/libboot libboot.a boot/libc libboot_c.a boot/arch_armv6 libboot_arch_armv6.a Architecture-specific libraries for SEMI 65002 SOC: partner/semi/boot/include/65002 headers partner/semi/boot/arch_65002 liboot_arch_65002.a Device-specific library for OEM Brick phone: partner/oem/brick/product_config.mk configuration partner/oem/brick/boot libboot_board_brick.a The actual bootloader: boot/bootloader bootloader The product_config.mk defines three important build variables: DEVICE_BOOTLOADER_LIBS := \ libboot_board_brick.a \ libboot_arch_65002.a \ libboot_arch_armv6.a DEVICE_BOOTLOADER_LINK_SCRIPT := \ partner/semi/boot/boot.ld DEVICE_BOOTLOADER_INIT := \ partner/semi/boot/init.S Which are used by the bootloader to specify which board and architecture specific libraries to link against as well as what link script and init.S to use