linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 0/5] Boot protocol changes

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Date:	Tue, 02 Oct 2007 17:46:59 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org>
CC:	Rusty Russell <rusty@...tcorp.com.au>,
	lkml - Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@...ibm.com>, lguest <lguest@...abs.org>,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/5] Boot protocol changes

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
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