Etienne Lorrain <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > H. Peter Anvin wrote: >> Actually, as far as I can see, he has re-invented having a real-mode >> code chunk which then gets run before the protected-mode kernel. We >> already have that! > > I did not claim to have invented anything there, this is just a quite > simple C code to execute instead of the current real mode assembly: > it is a rewrite with obvious advantages/disadvantages. > New features are more that this real-mode function can return an error > to the bootloader to tell something to the user, so the user can select > another kernel with the right processor, another video mode... with > clean error messages - not a crash dump because this assembly > instruction is not for that processor.
Having an error handling compatibility that is backwards compatible sounds interesting. > I am still saying that the bootloader knows the root filesystem to > be used by the kernel it loads, and that ELF is a clean format to > store different sections to be loaded into memory at predefined > addresses. Yes. Although when you think sections instead of segments I'm a little worried. > Also there isn't any more kernel size limit. I think as HPA points out we have gotten past that a long time ago with the bzImage format. With the right delicacy, and preserving backwards compatibility with existing bootloaders I think we can achieve things. The big issue is that sometimes bootloaders are a little bit brittle. Eric - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
