From owner-freebsd-current Tue Oct 13 15:23:53 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA08850 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 15:23:53 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA08841 for ; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 15:23:48 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) with ESMTP id HAA25174; Wed, 14 Oct 1998 07:53:18 +0930 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) id HAA27965; Wed, 14 Oct 1998 07:53:11 +0930 (CST) Message-ID: <19981014075310.V21983@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 07:53:10 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: Peter Wemm , Studded Cc: Mike Smith , Edwin Culp , FreeBSD-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: ELF kernels (was: Make elf release) References: <3622D416.E2E627AC@gorean.org> <199810130909.RAA29552@spinner.netplex.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: <199810130909.RAA29552@spinner.netplex.com.au>; from Peter Wemm on Tue, Oct 13, 1998 at 05:09:30PM +0800 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Tuesday, 13 October 1998 at 17:09:30 +0800, Peter Wemm wrote: > Studded wrote: >> Mike Smith wrote: >> >>> There's some (understandable) resistance to putting an ELF kernel in >>> 3.0, so the changeover will probably happen a few weeks afterwards. At >>> that stage we'll shift to the new bootloader as well. >> >> I still think getting the pain over now is a good idea. Leaving a major >> change for after the "release" will just postpone by one more quarter >> the time when 3.0 has a chance of being stable. > > Unfortunately, I agree, in part at least. The biggest difficulty in doing > a changeover is upgrading the stage2 bootblocks. If we get the 3.0 CD > installing ELF-capable bootblocks (even if it's a hacked biosboot), then > it's going to make the transition *so* much easier. It's not a question > of flipping a switch, we've got to get the bootblocks upgraded. If we > could get the 3.0 release sysinstall to do this for us it would be a big > win. > > Ideally there should be a choice in sysinstall, and sysinstall could > change them on the fly. If somebody installed a system and the new > bootblocks didn't work, it'd be nice if it was as simple as booting the > floppy and downgrading to the older system. > > IMHO, whether /kernel is a.out or elf is far less of an issue than which > bootblocks we use. I'm not sure whether you're talking about the same issue that Doug (Studded) is. I think moving to an ELF kernel 2 days before code freeze would be a disaster. It would certainly reduce functionality by the number of LKMs which haven't been converted to KLDs, and would presumably add opportunities for bugs in that area. Greg -- See complete headers for address, home page and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message