[erlang-questions] [newbie] boot file binary compatibility

[Marcus Better]

Hi,

I'm trying to launch erl with a boot file that was provided, but it crashes.
I suspect it may require an older Erlang version. Two questions:

1. Are boot files platform (i.e. operating system) independent?
2. Can they be loaded by a newer Erlang runtime than the one they are
intended for?

I tried with Erlang R11B-5 and R12B-0 on Debian i386. This is what happens: 

~$ erl -boot bootfile
{"init terminating in do_boot",{'cannot load',error_handler,get_file}}

Crash dump was written to: erl_crash.dump
init terminating in do_boot ()


Regards,

Marcus