Re: Change of TEXT_OFFSET for multi_v7_defconfig

[Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@arm.linux.org.uk>]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 11:26:53AM +0100, Daniel Thompson wrote:
> On 18/04/14 05:34, Nicolas Pitre wrote:
> >> I'm not suggesting to break anything or changing existing platforms,
> >> > but how do we improve the Image format in a compatible way. If
> >> > bootloaders want to support booting Image files or vmlinux directly,
> >> > then we should support that including any compatible changes to make
> >> > things work better.
> > And why would bootloaders want that?  Just to create confusion with 
> > the established boot protocol?
> 
> I'd say that they don't. My original concern was how the different
> architectures negotiate if more than one arch wants a special text
> offset, not how to write a correct bootloader.
> 
> The existing uImage files already provide sufficient information to load
> the kernel regardless of the TEXT_OFFSET chosen by negotiation among the
> enabled architectures.

No.  uImage merely specifies the address at which to load/execute the
zImage, and more often than not this is a step which has to be done
after kernel build as the kernel build does not have the information
to be able to generate a uImage on its own.  Also, a uImage generated
for one platform will not necessarily boot on a different platform
even though the contents of the uImage may be 100% identical apart
from the header.

This is why we're moving away from uImage, and booting zImage directly
on ARM hardware.  File formats which encode the load and execution
addresses are cumbersome when you positively don't want that information
in the file (because that information is irrelevant.)

> The entry point is PAGE_OFFSET + TEXT_OFFSET and, although only
> implicitly defined, the entry point cannot be set to any other value
> without making a backward incompatible to arm/Booting:
>     "The boot loader is expected to call the kernel image by jumping
>     directly to the first instruction of the kernel image."
> 
> Therefore providing PAGE_OFFSET remains 1G aligned and the hardware
> meets the not-unreasonably-stupid test (i.e. TEXT_OFFSET < 1G) then
> deriving the right value for TEXT_OFFSET is a trivial mask operation on
> the entry point.

PAGE_OFFSET doesn't have to be 1G aligned.  As I've already pointed out
in previous replies, PAGE_OFFSET is totally irrelevant in this discussion.
PAGE_OFFSET is the *virtual* address of the RAM, and has no bearing what
so ever on where you load the kernel image.

Even if you did mean PHYS_OFFSET and the above was a typo, the above
statement still remains false.

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