From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1GkRaN-0008Il-4O for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:42:19 -0500 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1GkRaM-0008IX-3a for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:42:18 -0500 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1GkRaK-0008IL-LL for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:42:16 -0500 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1GkRaK-0008II-E6 for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:42:16 -0500 Received: from [212.85.152.101] (helo=kotoba.storever.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1GkRaK-0007Rc-PM for grub-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:42:16 -0500 Received: from kotoba.oasis.nexedi.com (kotoba.oasis.nexedi.com [212.85.152.101]) by kotoba.storever.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D957B3CCA016E for ; Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:27:45 +0100 (CET) Received: from [??1] (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by kotoba.storever.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 875CA3CCA0131 for ; Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:27:45 +0100 (CET) From: "Yoshinori K. Okuji" Organization: enbug.org To: The development of GRUB 2 Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2006 22:42:16 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.8.2 References: <1163545104.12931.49.camel@basalt> <87psbphyu3.fsf@night.trouble.net> <1163616145.8873.35.camel@basalt> In-Reply-To: <1163616145.8873.35.camel@basalt> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-6" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200611152142.16440.okuji@enbug.org> X-Bogosity: No, tests=bogofilter, spamicity=0.499786, version=0.17.2 Subject: Re: multiboot2: make multiboot header optional 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, 15 Nov 2006 20:42:18 -0000 On Wednesday 15 November 2006 19:42, Hollis Blanchard wrote: > > If the operating system kernel is stupid enough to require as special > > video mode the user should be aware of that and setup the bootloader > > so that it is in that mode before the kernel is started. > > The only information in the multiboot header is a) the load addresses > for a.out and "other" formats, and b) the VGA info. > > We could certainly drop the VGA info. No. The problem is that a kernel cannot initialize VESA in protected mode in some BIOSes. If you need more info, please dig into the archive of bug-grub. > I don't think it would be a big deal to drop a.out as well; I don't know > of any modern OS that uses these, and anyways kernel builds are special. > However (and I don't know how reasonable this is), Mac OS X's toolchain > will build only Mach-O binaries, so one would be unable to build a > kernel that GRUB could load. We could require a Mach-O loader in that > case, but I will admit that the "a.out hack" multiboot header fields > simplify this problem. Never drop the a.out kludge. This flexibility is one of the advantages in Multiboot. Note that GRUB itself uses this feature. Okuji