Re: A rather silly question about memory maps.

[OKUJI Yoshinori]

From: "Groman" <address@hidden>
Subject: A rather silly question about memory maps.
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 19:56:59 -0800

> Question #1:
>         Does GRUB at it's current CVS stage support guaranteed memory
> maps?(as in the multiboot
> standard)

Yes.

> Question #2:
>         If GRUB supports memory maps, does it mark the areas where it puts
> vital data as
> reserved?

No. The memory map indicates which areas of memory is usable as
ordinary RAM, as the spec says, regardless of the contents of the
areas.

> Question #3:
>         If GRUB marks occupied areas as available(with modules, multiboot
> info and the kernel),
> how hard would it be to modify GRUB to give an option of marking those areas
> as reserved?

It doesn't matter how hard. GRUB _must not_ mark such areas as
reserved, to comply with the spec.

> Question #4:
>         Am I totally blind and is there something about these areas in the
> multiboot standard?

Unfortunately, Multiboot Standard 0.6 wasn't strict enough, so you can
mistake the real intentions easily. I'm currently working on Multiboot
Specification 0.7, and I hope that my work will solve such a confusion.

Okuji