[coreboot] Multiboot support

Carl-Daniel Hailfinger c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006 at gmx.net
Tue Sep 9 20:00:53 CEST 2008


On 09.09.2008 19:37, Robert Millan wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 09, 2008 at 11:19:27AM -0600, Jordan Crouse wrote:
>   
>> On 09/09/08 18:59 +0200, Robert Millan wrote:
>>     
>>> I'm thinking that it'd be interesting for coreboot to have direct support for
>>> Multiboot, so that Multiboot kernels can be used directly without GRUB/FILO as
>>> middle man (somewhat like this thing you call "LAB").
>>>
>>> When I brought this up on IRC, Patrick expressed concerns about size.  I suppose
>>> the best would be to give users the option to provide either coreboot tables or
>>> Multiboot, whatever is needed for their payload, instead of adding both things
>>> unconditionally.
>>>       

Sorry, that won't fly. The official Multiboot spec at
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/multiboot/multiboot.html lacks
quite a few things needed by the OS and supported by coreboot tables.

That means the concerns about size are valid and the proposed way to fix
them won't work.

>>> Nevertheless I don't expect the basic Multiboot support to be excessively big.
>>>
>>> If this idea sounds fine, I could provide a patch for v3.
>>>       
>> I support this idea unconditionally.  I know the limitations and
>> concerns about multiboot - but playing well with others is something
>> we need to do a better job of.  
>>     
>
> Good :-).  I'll get to work.
>
>   
>> I don't suppose we could talk you into a v2 patch as well?
>>     
>
> Maybe ;-).  I do the v3 patch, and once we're done with it, I'll see how
> easy/hard it is to backport it, is that ok?
>   

What advantages does Multiboot have over storing the parsed kernel in
the LAR? Will Multiboot make SELF obsolete before it's even introduced?
How about the ELF loader already in coreboot v3?

Regards,
Carl-Daniel

-- 
http://www.hailfinger.org/





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