Re: [PATCH 12/12] i386 boot: Add an ELF header to bzImage

H. Peter Anvin
2006-10-04T20:53:30Z

Vivek Goyal wrote:
>
> memsz will contain the memory required to load the kernel image. And
> probably should also include the memory used by kernel in initial boot
> up code which is unaccounted and unbounded.
>

Right, so that's a major project to produce.

One modification that would be highly desirable is to be able to put
initrd/initramfs in highmem, since people keep adding options which
break the highmem/lowmem boundary without consideration for the
implications; the latest one being vmalloc=.

>> I suspect we need at least one more piece of data, which is the required
>> alignment of a relocated kernel.
>
> Now with the introduction of config option CONFIG_PHYSICAL_ALIGN, it
> should be easy to get.

Yes, that should be easy.

>> Either which way, it seems clear that
>> there is some re-engineering that needs to be done, and I think we need
>> to better understand *why* the proposed patch failed.
>>
>> Can this failure be reproduced in a simulator?
>
> I will try to reproduce in a simulator. May be qemu? Any suggestions?

I find Bochs easier to debug under, although it's substantially slower.

-hpa