linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH RFC 6/7] i386: make the bzImage payload an ELF file

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Date:	Thu, 07 Jun 2007 09:14:50 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	Rob Landley <rob@...dley.net>
CC:	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org>,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
	Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@...ibm.com>,
	Rusty Russell <rusty@...tcorp.com.au>, Andi Kleen <ak@...e.de>,
	v12n <virtualization@...ts.linux-foundation.org>,
	lkml <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC 6/7] i386: make the bzImage payload an ELF file

Rob Landley wrote:
> 
> Er, make that objcopy, not objdump.
> 
> Sane, maybe not.  Something people want to do (and under the mistaken 
> assumption I know more about initramfs then they do, have asked me how), yes.  
> It always boils down to "do you have a vmlinux image lying around?  Doing 
> this with a bzImage _is_ brain surgery", and has yet to get beyond that 
> question.  I had about half of a script worked out for this, once...
> 

If it can be done today on a vmlinux then it can be done the same way
with the mechanism I have proposed.  Period, full stop.

> You can also supply an external initramfs image through the initrd mechanism, 
> but this is unpleasant to do with some bootloaders (or lack of bootloaders).  
> Plus it doesn't remove the old one, and wasting space makes embedded 
> developers itch.

In thory one could create an extended bzImage format which could handle
a concatenated, and easily replaceable, initrd, but if it's done on
vmlinux today it would make a *lot* more sense to have it be done on the
vmlinux and nothing else.

	-hpa
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