Re: [PATCH 1/1] Fix boot on efi 32 bit Machines [try #4]

H. Peter Anvin
2006-07-02T17:42:53Z

Eric W. Biederman wrote:

>>>
>> You probably don't want to put it in the bootloader. The kernel is easier to
>> upgrade than the bootloader, which is easier to upgrade than the firmware, so it
>> makes more sense for the kernel to be as self-sufficient as is possible, or at
>> least practical.
>
> Regardless it would be nice if the efi implementation hacks were removed.
>
> My favorite is this one in init/main.c
> #ifdef CONFIG_X86
> if (efi_enabled)
> efi_enter_virtual_mode();
> #endif
>
> Which pretty much guarantees efi won't be a distro supported feature
> any time soon because it breaks kexec the ability of a kexec'd kernel
> to boot and thus crash dump support. Or it does if you ever use efi
> callbacks, and if you don't use efi callbacks there is no point in
> calling that function. Why are efi callbacks not always done in
> physical mode?
>

If nothing else, they should be isolated, and in the early kernel build
a datastructure like the e820 data structure, so the downstream kernel
doesn't deal with it.

I have no idea what the above does; it sounds to me like something that
should be possible to do differently, though.

-hpa