Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 3 Aug 1999 15:22:41 +0200 | From | Christer Weinigel <> | Subject | Re: Boot code rewritten for GAS |
| |
H. Peter Anvin wrote: >> I'd say you guessed why this keeps getting ignored. (I have binutils >> 2.8.1.0.1 right now.) You could submit the patch again in a few years. >> >> Another reason: People who can write 16-bit x86 assembly are likely >> to >> be ex-DOS hackers with MASM and TASM experience. To them, gas >> syntax >> may be hard to use. > >Indeed. NASM would be a better choice than either gas or as86.
The big problem I have with NASM is the license, if it hasn't been updated lately there is still a problem with it being shipped with a distribution such as RedHat:
Charging a fee for the Software is prohibited, although a fee may be charged for the act of transferring a copy, and you can offer warranty protection and charge a fee for that.
Other than that, for me the as86/ld86 combo works and the code is almost never changed, adding a dependency on a new tool (i.e. NASM or a newer binutils) seems like a lot of trouble for almost no gain.
BTW, yes, I have been hacking the as86 sources, porting the Linux-2.0 kernel to an embedded 486 so I am aware that the as86 code is kind of brittle and the error/warning messages leave a _lot_ to be desired, but still, it's such a small amount of code that I can live with it.
/Christer
-- Christer Weinigel Cendio Systems AB Email: wingel@cendio.se Teknikringen 8 Phone: +46-13-21 46 00 583 30 Linköping Fax: +46-13-21 47 00 Sweden [please note that Signum Support has changed its name to Cendio Systems]
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |