Ronald G Minnich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> do you think we can integrate this into the linuxbios source tree? doable?
> if so, what do we have to change?
Yes, but I think I need a day or two before I get to that point.
To actually have integration it looks like we are going to have
to introduce some kind of arch directory. There are just
so many header files that change when you switch to a 64 bit
architecture.
For alpha the linux kernel is so close I'm going to push a pure
linuxBIOS. In particular I'm not going to initialize anything in
the linuxBIOS except the serial port & the flash so I can print
debugging messages and read from the flash. Then all linuxBIOS
becomes is linuxbiosmain.c and it's supporting functions. I have
to admit on intel I would still memory initialization to do, but
for alpha I can skip that step because the SROM does that for me.
A second point. Currently we hardcode the location of the kernel
image and where it should be uncompressed in memory into linuxbios.
What I would like to do unless someone has an objection is:
(a) Implement my kexec interface for starting a kernel from linuxBIOS.
(b) move the responsibility of decompression into the kernel image
itself. This can still be used by the BSD's if they choose to.
(c) Implement a search algorithm in the rom where we look for a
ELF header to find the kernel. Instead of hardcoding its
location into ROM.
With these changes using an initial ram disk with linuxBIOS should
become easier. As well as having more than one kernel image.
And our dependency on a particular version of linux should decrease.
Eric
