[LinuxBIOS] Etherboot FILO

[yhlu]

in the current kernel, there is one option for size optimization and
compiler check.
when it is enabled, my 64 bit kernel size is reduced form 2M to 1.8M. ( bZImage)

YH

On 9/22/06, Richard Smith <smithbone at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I think Etherboot and FILO are dead almost, because we intend to put tiny
> > > kernel and kexec on the flash.
> >
> > Tiny kernel, like 32kb?
>
> Not with linux.  He's talking about the tiny- patches that have been
> (mostly) integrated in to the mainline linux kernel.  Using these
> patches linux gets much smaller.  Although its still pretty large.
>
> > Or tiny kernel, like replace bios completely?
>
> For OLPC we have linuxbios+kernel+initrd all in 896KiB. (We lose
> 128KiB of our 1MiB due to some other firmware)   It has USB and can
> boot jffs2 or ext3 filesystems and small graphical boot selector with
> fancy icons.  It also has a busybox ash shell for when the booting
> fails.
>
> With the new LZMA compression we plan to get TCP/IP stuck in there as well.
>
> So with 1MiB you can now have all the functionality of etherboot+filo.
>
> Can you get there for smaller parts? Don't know yet.  If you drop
> jffs2 all the shell stuff then  512KiB has a really good chance.
> 256KiB will be a bit more of a challenge.  You may have to move to an
> "in kernel" loader.
>
> --
> Richard A. Smith
>
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