Re: [CFT][RFC] Linux/i386 boot protocol version 2.04

Randy.Dunlap
2002-04-01T20:50:01Z

On 30 Mar 2002, Eric W. Biederman wrote:

| I have been doing some very weird things with booting the Linux kernel
| for a long time.

so you are saying that we want these 'weird' things in the
baseline kernel? ;)

Will you please provide a one-sentence explanation for each of
these items? (not "what," but "why" it's good to have it)

| - Entering the kernel in 32bit mode to avoid 16bit BIOS calls.
| - Converting bzImage into static ELF executables.
| - Hard coding a kernel command-line
| - Going back to 16bit mode to make BIOS calls if necessary.
|
| This version of the boot protocol should be fully backwards compatible
| but has new capabilities so I can do all of the above cleanly.
|
| The current plan is to send this to Linus in the next couple of days
| as soon as he gets back.
|
...
|
| Anyway please tell me what you think.
|
| Eric
|
|
| This is a log of a series of patches that cleans up and enhances the
| x86 boot process.

[snippage]

| 2.5.7.boot.proto 7
| ============================================================
| Update the boot protocol to include:
| - A compiled in command line

when and how is the command line specified? at build time?

maybe in a kernel.command.line file so that I don't have to type
it in every time?

|
| 2.5.7.boot.boot_params 1
| ============================================================
| - Introduce asm-i386/boot_param.h and struct boot_params
| - Implement struct boot_params in misc.c & setup.c

Yep, I like that one.

| This removes a lot of magic macros and by keeping all of the
| boot parameters in a structure it becomes much easier to track
| which boot_paramters we have and where they live. Additionally
| this keeps the names more uniform making grepping easier.

I'll try to look over the patch files too.

--
~Randy