Re: GRUB2 and Multiboot?

[Pavel Roskin]

On Fri, 2008-04-11 at 13:55 -0600, Julian Salazar wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I've got some questions about GRUB2 relating to the Multiboot Draft:
> 
> It seems like GRUB2 passes the start tag with a key of 1, bootloader name
> with a key of 2, etc.
> But the Multiboot draft says that the start tag has a key of 0, bootloader
> name has a key of 1, etc.
> Which one is right? One or the other has to be changed...

You may get a better answer if you quote the specification (and where
you found it) and the piece of code that appears wrong to you.

I looked into multiboot.texi in GRUB 1 CVS, and I don't see the word
"tag" there.

> Suggestions:
> I think that the multiboot tags should be explicitly (in the multiboot spec)
> passed in order (i.e. that a tag with a key of 5 should always go before one
> with a key of 7) Maybe a bootloader should give an x86-64 kernel the option
> to either boot it into 32 or 64 bit mode? Or is that asking for too much?

I don't think having a dual-mode kernel would be a good idea.  Either it
would be two kernels glued together, or it would be essentially a 32-bit
kernel with option 64-bit extensions - hardly a good idea for a kernel.
And in the later case, it would be better to use a parameter, like
"enable-64bit".

Or maybe you mean that the kernel should tell the bootloader whether the
control should be passed to it in the 64-bit mode?

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin