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

Andrew Morton
2006-10-06T06:59:35Z

On Thu, 05 Oct 2006 09:29:42 -0600
ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) wrote:

>
> In the lazy programmer school of fixes.
>
> I haven't really tested this in any configuration.
> But reading video.S it does use variable in the bootsector.
> It does seem to initialize the variables before use.
> But obviously something is missed.
>
> By zeroing the uninteresting parts of the bootsector just after we
> have determined we are loaded ok. We should ensure we are
> always in a known state the entire time.
>
> Andrew if I am right about the cause of your video not working
> when you set an enhanced video mode this should fix your boot
> problem.
>
> Singed-off-by: Eric Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
>
> diff --git a/arch/i386/boot/setup.S b/arch/i386/boot/setup.S
> index 53903a4..246ac88 100644
> --- a/arch/i386/boot/setup.S
> +++ b/arch/i386/boot/setup.S
> @@ -287,6 +287,13 @@ # Check if an old loader tries to load a
> loader_panic_mess: .string "Wrong loader, giving up..."
>
> loader_ok:
> +# Zero initialize the variables we keep in the bootsector
> + xorw %di, %di
> + xorb %al, %al
> + movw $497, %cx
> + rep
> + stosb
> +
> # Get memory size (extended mem, kB)
>
> xorl %eax, %eax

That fixed the vga=0x263 crash.