From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S965346AbXBLTrl (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:47:41 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S965348AbXBLTrk (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:47:40 -0500 Received: from ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com ([166.70.28.69]:46704 "EHLO ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S965346AbXBLTrk (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:47:40 -0500 From: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) To: "H. Peter Anvin" Cc: Etienne Lorrain , vgoyal@in.ibm.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Re : [PATCH] Compressed ia32 ELF file generation for loading by Gujin 1/3 References: <687898.45581.qm@web26907.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <45D07457.9030006@zytor.com> Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 12:47:27 -0700 In-Reply-To: <45D07457.9030006@zytor.com> (H. Peter Anvin's message of "Mon, 12 Feb 2007 06:06:15 -0800") Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.110006 (No Gnus v0.6) Emacs/21.4 (gnu/linux) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org "H. Peter Anvin" writes: > Eric W. Biederman wrote: >> >> With ELF we get a single file format that works on multiple >> architectures and for multiple OS-s, with well understood rules. This >> allows for a broader audience who can review and maintain the code. >> In addition to the real possibility of multi-architecture or multi-os >> bootloaders. >> > > Well understood MAYBE (although the "virtual" versus "physical" address stuff in > ELF is clearly misspecified in the extreme), but they are clearly not sufficient > for presenting a well-defined entry condition. So it's not really anywhere near > as straightforward as you make it sound. About the entry condition I completely agree. The fact that the generic tools almost do what you need and then fall short is also problematic. However it still appears a reasonable approach to consider. Eric