From owner-freebsd-current Wed Apr 22 13:37:45 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id NAA14494 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:37:45 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from dingo.cdrom.com (dingo.cdrom.com [204.216.28.145]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id UAA14487 for ; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 20:37:44 GMT (envelope-from mike@dingo.cdrom.com) Received: from dingo.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by dingo.cdrom.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id NAA00578; Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:32:10 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199804222032.NAA00578@dingo.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Chris Csanady cc: Peter Wemm , John-Mark Gurney , Terry Lambert , current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: ELF kernels: When? In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:54:45 CDT." <199804221354.IAA02372@friley585.res.iastate.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:32:09 -0700 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > >The real problems are: > >- The bootblocks do not load the ELF symbol table, so DDB can't see it. > >- DDB doesn't understand the ELF symbol tables yet anyway. > >- the bootblocks have *zero* bytes free at present. There is ELF load code > >available, but you have to disable BAD144 to get it to fit. Restructuring > >the code so that the #ifdefs are not too messy tips the bootblocks over > >the limit by a few bytes. > >- The loader is quite simple, it pulls in the text and data LOAD sections, > >without any of the section headers etc. Those section headers and string > >tables are needed to do proper runtime linking via link_elf.c. > > So, does anyone know enough about bootblocks to look at integrating NetBSD's? Yes. It's in the queue, and I keep waving it at potentially interested parties. > They have done a significant amount of work in this area it seems, and they > already have a two-stage design. Trying to squeeze every last bit out of > the current blocks seems futile.. The only thing "wrong" with their code is that their second stage bootblock has a blocklist for the third stage. That's Ugly. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message