Re: [PATCH 0/5] Boot protocol changes

H. Peter Anvin
2007-10-03T00:47:22Z

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>
> No, not at all.
>
> I'm proposing that the existing bzImage format be retained, but that the
> payload of the decompressor (already a gzip file) simply be vmlinux.gz
> -- i.e. a gzip compressed ELF file, notes and all. A pointer in the
> header will point to the offset of the payload (this is new, obviously.)
>
> The decompression stub is adjusted to expect an ELF image, instead of a
> raw binary.
>
> Existing bootloaders (16- or 32-bit) simply load the bzImage the way
> they do now; new bootloaders have the option of accessing the vmlinux.gz
> directly if they either want to load it themselves or want to examine
> the notes.
>

Slight correction: it does, of course, break loaders which root through
the bzImage for a gzip header and decode that themselves and place in
memory. These loaders are pretty broken, though; they can't deal with
the fact that the physical address of the kernel is configurable, for
one thing.

-hpa