Re: Kernel section info.

[Kurt Skauen]

OKUJI Yoshinori <address@hidden> writes:

 
> From: Kurt Skauen <address@hidden>
> Subject: Re: Kernel section info.
> Date: 01 Nov 2000 13:03:45 +0100
> 
> > Sorry, but I did not understood a word of what you tried to explain
> > here :( Doesn't the boot loader locate modules in the current
> > version?
> 
>   It does, but it does _randomly_. This is because the spec says that
> Multiboot boot loaders don't interpret the formats of modules. But, if
> we can embed information about the appropriate addresses of modules in
> them, a Multiboot boot loader can load them at the specified
> addresses, instead of placing them arbitrarily.

But there is now way to know where to load a module before you know
what modules are needed and how big each module are. If you where able
to specify excactly where to load each module, you could just aswell
embedd them in the kernel. And it is not randomly in the current
version, it is back-to-back after the kernel image (I cheated and
looked at the source :). The problem is that you are not guaranteed
that they are loaded there according to the standard, and worse you
are not guaranteed that the module are loaded at increasing
addresses. I think that the module list given to the kernel should
always be sorted on the address of the modules since that simplyfies a
few things in the kernel. That is guaranteed by the current
implementation of GRUB but is not stated in the MultiBoot specs.
Maybee it should? I also think it whould be nice if the kernel could
set a flag in the multiboot header embedded in the kernel to request
that it whanted the modules to be loaded back-to-back after the kernel
(like in the current implementation of GRUB).

-- 
Kurt Skauen. ( http://www.atheos.cx/ )

"There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take
credit. Try to be in the first group, there is less competition there." __
Indira Gandhi