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Date:      Wed, 22 Apr 1998 13:32:09 -0700
From:      Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
To:        Chris Csanady <ccsanady@friley585.res.iastate.edu>
Cc:        Peter Wemm <peter@netplex.com.au>, John-Mark Gurney <gurney_j@resnet.uoregon.edu>, Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: ELF kernels: When? 
Message-ID:  <199804222032.NAA00578@dingo.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 22 Apr 1998 08:54:45 CDT." <199804221354.IAA02372@friley585.res.iastate.edu> 

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> 
> >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



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