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freestanding
Freestanding code runs without an operating system or standard library beneath it — it must supply its own basics.
Normal 'hosted' programs rely on the OS and a C standard library (libc) for things like memory allocation and I/O. Freestanding code, such as a kernel or bootloader, cannot assume any of that exists; it runs on bare hardware and must provide or avoid those facilities itself. 'Freestanding C' is C compiled for exactly that environment, using only the language core, not the hosted library.
See also
- firmwareFirmware is the low-level software that runs first at power-on and prepares the machine before the operating system takes over.
- GRUBGRUB is a widely used bootloader — the program that loads and starts an operating system kernel at boot.
- four-arch / x86_64 / aarch64 / arm64 / i386These are the four processor architectures the system targets, so fixes are checked to work on all of them.