From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1MOcEj-0004Bc-Ke for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:51:21 -0400 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MOcEh-0004B9-KN for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:51:19 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MOcEd-00049Z-46 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:51:19 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=48127 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MOcEc-00049T-Ty for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:51:14 -0400 Received: from c60.cesmail.net ([216.154.195.49]:29535) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_ARCFOUR_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MOcEc-00020D-DP for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:51:14 -0400 Received: from unknown (HELO smtprelay2.cesmail.net) ([192.168.1.112]) by c60.cesmail.net with ESMTP; 08 Jul 2009 14:51:12 -0400 Received: from [192.168.0.22] (static-72-92-88-10.phlapa.fios.verizon.net [72.92.88.10]) by smtprelay2.cesmail.net (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id BBAB134C6A for ; Wed, 8 Jul 2009 14:59:42 -0400 (EDT) From: Pavel Roskin To: The development of GRUB 2 In-Reply-To: <87ws6jntc3.fsf@xs4all.nl> References: <87ws6jntc3.fsf@xs4all.nl> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:51:10 -0400 Message-Id: <1247079070.26368.25.camel@mj> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.26.3 (2.26.3-1.fc11) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. Subject: Re: [RFC] New object format for grub2 X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GRUB 2 List-Id: The development of GRUB 2 List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:51:20 -0000 Hello, Marco! On Wed, 2009-07-08 at 16:27 +0200, Marco Gerards wrote: > There is another problem with this: the maintainance burden. People > know ELF, we have ELF and people will know ELF in the future. > Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, GNU/Linux is our main > platform. I do not mind supporting windows or so and we can support > it in a sane way, but changing our binary formats for it is one step > too far for me... There is actually a maintenance burden that is caused by the need to support the ELF format. We need to strip some sections from the modules for GRUB to process them correctly. Support for "secondary" platforms means that the build system should recognize of compile tools to convert their native formats to ELF. It's more complex than having one converter for all platforms that is completely under our control. In addition to the problem on the core.img size, we have a problem of the size of all the core plus modules. GRUB already barely fits the boot partitions on PowerPC, and it won't fit if yaboot is to be preserved. Soon it will push the limits of a 1.44Mb floppy (without any kernels, mind you). And then there is an issue with writing GRUB on a ROM. I'm not exactly enthusiastic about another major change when we need stabilization, but the maintenance argument really doesn't apply here. -- Regards, Pavel Roskin