Re: binutils 2.19 issue with kernel link

[Dale Farnsworth <dale@farnsworth.org>]

On Wed, Jul 08, 2009 at 05:41:39PM -0500, Kumar Gala wrote:
> We are seeing an issue w/ld and kernel linking of 32-bit kernels.
>
> The ld from fedora 11 (2.19.51.0.2-17.fc11 20090204) ends not providing 
> the proper address for _end.
>
> Building stock v2.6.30 w/the mpc85xx_defconfig we get:
>
> 00001000 A _end
>
> Using 2.18.50.20080215 we get:
>
> c0680000 A _end
>
> If we modify the linker script:
>
>       _end2 = .;
>       _end3 = ALIGN(4096);
>       _end4 = ALIGN(PAGE_SIZE);
>       . = ALIGN(PAGE_SIZE);
>       _end = . ;
>       PROVIDE32 (end = .);
>
> and the result is:
>
> 00001000 A _end
> c067f678 A _end2
> c0680000 A _end3
> c0680000 A _end4
>
> I used an old version of linker (2.18.50.20080215) and re-linked:
>
> c067f678 A _end2
> c0680000 A _end
> c0680000 A _end3
> c0680000 A _end4
>
> Any ideas?

We have found the following workaround to be useful.
Thanks to Andrew Jenner at Code Sourcery.

-Dale

Dale Farnsworth
MontaVista Software

diff --git a/arch/powerpc/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S b/arch/powerpc/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
index acf237f..34b0181 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
+++ b/arch/powerpc/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S
@@ -282,4 +282,7 @@ SECTIONS
 	. = ALIGN(PAGE_SIZE);
 	_end = . ;
 	PROVIDE32 (end = .);
+
+#undef PPC
+	.PPC.EMB.apuinfo 0 : { *(.PPC.EMB.apuinfo) }
 }