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

[Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@in.ibm.com>]

On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 08:13:40PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Oct 2006 13:25:11 -0400
> Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@in.ibm.com> wrote:
> 
> > Increasingly the cobbled together boot protocol that
> > is bzImage does not have the flexibility to deal
> > with booting in new situations.
> > 
> > Now that we no longer support the bootsector loader
> > we have 512 bytes at the very start of a bzImage that
> > we can use for other things.
> > 
> > Placing an ELF header there allows us to retain
> > a single binary for all of x86 while at the same
> > time describing things that bzImage does not allow
> > us to describe.
> 
> Seems that the entire kernel effort is an ongoing plot to make my poor
> little Vaio stop working.  This patch turns it into a black-screened rock
> as soon as it does grub -> linux.  Stock-standard FC5 install, config at
> http://userweb.kernel.org/~akpm/config-sony.txt.

Hi Andrew,

Right now I don't have access to my test machine.  Tomorrow morning,
very first thing I am going to try it out with your config file.

This patch just adds and ELF header to bzImage which is not even used
by grub.

So without this patch you are able to boot the kernel on your laptop?

Thanks
Vivek