Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 09:18:52 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: boot floppy banner Message-ID: <199802100918.CAA23887@usr05.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <199802100831.AAA00459@dingo.cdrom.com> from "Mike Smith" at Feb 10, 98 00:31:55 am
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> > I'll think about it; it's pretty trivial, I'm betting, except where > > the "extras" are concerned (they made some things vastly more complex, > > unfortunately). > > Which things do they complexify, and how? I'm not really attached to > the way that the current "extras" stuff works; if there is a more > ELF-friendly way to do it, then I'm all ears. Mostly "knowing where it's safe to load a second stage ELF-based a.out booter below 1M". One very real problem is that we need to start thinking in terms of running the initial kernel code (a second stage boot at a minimum) in real mode, and making it the kernel's responsibility to go to protected mode. Have you looked at the GRUB code? It claims to have FreeBSD patches available, though I'm sure they are quite dated. It makes the same request for the kernel to do its own transition to protected mode. It makes the error of asking the kernel to accept it's idea of memory, and a couple of other things, though: if the OS specific boot's second stage runs in real mode, it can find that stuff out for itself. It would have to, for ELF vs. a.out, unless we were to also make an ELF second stage (not a bad idea, but more work). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe hackers" in the body of the message
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