Re: Absolute symbols in vmlinux_64.lds.S

[ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman)]

"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@kernel.org> writes:

> Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>> 
>> I have no complaint with that.  I believe the symbols are absolute
>> simply because they were originally coded that way and the relocatable
>> kernel work on x86_64 didn't need them to change.
>> 
>
> I have a vague memory of a bug in the x86-64 ld.

Oh.  I'm certain of it.  ld has all kinds of bugs off and on,
occasionally we are bound to run into a few of them.

ld bugs isn't the reason for using absolute linker symbols.  We use a
bunch of relative linker symbols as well.  All of the generic linker
scripts sections use them as well as a few of the x86_64 specific
sections.

For crazy things like 0 relative per cpu sections it might matter.
For the rest of the symbols absolute or relative simply
doesn't matter.

Is anyone interested in writing a patch testing it and changing things?

If not things should be good enough for now.

Eric