Bootint big kernels was Re: VI reasons (was Re: Base Set: Suggested additions & removals.)
On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Hamish Moffatt wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 10, 1998 at 09:17:20PM -0600, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> > When you boot the kernel it copies the Image from the disk to 0x1000
> > (about 64k). If the Image is beyond 600k then you have a problem because
> > it suddenly will not all fit in low memory.
> >
> > A bzImage is more sinister. After it loads a few block in it makes some
> > bios calls to copy the blocks up to 1 meg where the 3rd stage boot loader
> > will run. After that it uncompresses the kernel to some location then
> > copies it to it's proper placement at 1M. a zImage simply uncompresses the
> > kernel to 1M.
> >
> > In theory, on a notebook the int calls are glitchy and crash the system.
> >
> > If your kernel is > 600k you MUST use a bzImage and you MUST load it into
>
> So is there any other advantage? 600k is pretty big for a default
> kernel, especially since we are making heavy use of modules. My custom 2.0.34
> is 300k odd, although obviously the Debian one needs a bunch of SCSI drivers.
> If we are < 600k, why use it when it is problematic?
>
The problem is that the Debian installation kernel tries to be all things
to all people. As there are machines that boot from SCSI drives, it was
necessary to have all the scsi controlers "built in" to the kernel, hense
its large size.
We should recommend that everyone, once they have a standard system and
can build a kernel, should build a custom kernel for their machine as
early as possible.
Another solution is the one that slackware provides. They build a "bunch"
of kernels, each one for a specific hardware configuration (broad enought
to cover a range of hardware, and chosen to keep incopatibly drivers out
of the picture {like the wd9000 driver that plonks ethernet cards})
Waiting is,
Dwarf
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