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SubjectRe: Kernels > 1M
On Mon, Aug 09, 1999 at 10:36:00AM +0200, Werner Almesberger wrote:

> Considering that nothing but bootsect.S itself uses syssize, the most
> straightforward solution to the problem seems to be to change the unit
> of syssize from paragraphs to sectors, to increase the header version
> number in setup.S (not 100% clean, but the best approximation to a
> version number for bootsect.S we have), and to update the checks
> accordingly.
>

Hi Werner et al.,

how about dropping the boot and setup code from the kernel entirely?
Just move the whole stuff to the bootloader (as it used to be done
with commercial Unices on PC's) and have it setup the whole 32Bit PM
environment, load the (possibly zipped) vmlinux binary (not necessarily in
this order), pass the config options on the command line (or through some
reserved memory) and execute it.

Thus we would no longer need as86/ld86 to build the kernel (see the thread
about this topic) and building the kernel would be the same as on
SPARC/MIPS/ALPHA...

The next step then would be to merge MILO(Alpha), MILO(Mips), LILO and SILO
(Werner. we talked about that over dinner back at Linux-Kongress in
Würzburg, remember?) into a common bootloader for all architectures. That
should make life a bit easier for the distributors and documentation
authors ...

Are there any _REAL_ problems that would prevent this?

Yours,
Dominik Kubla
--
Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step
out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an
error of judgment. --Philip K. Dick. Author's Note, A SCANNER DARKLY, 1977

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