H. Peter Anvin wrote:
quoted text
>  
> No, not at all.
> 
> I'm proposing that the existing bzImage format be retained, but that the 
> payload of the decompressor (already a gzip file) simply be vmlinux.gz 
> -- i.e. a gzip compressed ELF file, notes and all.  A pointer in the 
> header will point to the offset of the payload (this is new, obviously.)
> 
> The decompression stub is adjusted to expect an ELF image, instead of a 
> raw binary.
> 
> Existing bootloaders (16- or 32-bit) simply load the bzImage the way 
> they do now; new bootloaders have the option of accessing the vmlinux.gz 
> directly if they either want to load it themselves or want to examine 
> the notes.
> 

Slight correction: it does, of course, break loaders which root through 
the bzImage for a gzip header and decode that themselves and place in 
memory.  These loaders are pretty broken, though; they can't deal with 
the fact that the physical address of the kernel is configurable, for 
one thing.

	-hpa
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