Re: [Q] the limited size of vmlinuz ?
Russell Coker - mailing lists account (bofh@snoopy.virtual.net.au)
Fri, 21 Nov 97 20:18:48 +1000
>The size of vmlinuz is limited (at least on the x86 platform) is because
>when the kernel is being loaded into memory the processor is in real mode,
>and only has conventional memort to work with (<640K). The real reason
>behind this is that the bootloader needs the bios to load the kernel into
>memory, which only works in real mode. bzImage tries to get around that
>by having the boot loader load the kernel into extended memory one chunk
>at a time (ie load chunk using bios, switch to prot. mode, copy to ext
>mem, switch back to real mode, etc.) thereby eliminating the size
Why does it have to do the mode switching? Doesn't the LOADALL
instruction work for this? What about going to VM86 mode and calling the
BIOS from there?
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"Russell Coker - mailing lists account" <bofh@snoopy.virtual.net.au>
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