1da177e4c3
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history, even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about 3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good infrastructure for it. Let it rip!
47 lines
1.6 KiB
Text
47 lines
1.6 KiB
Text
Information about the Linux/PPC kernel images
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=====================================================================
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Please mail me (Cort Dougan, cort@fsmlabs.com) if you have questions,
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comments or corrections.
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This document is meant to answer several questions I've had about how
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the PReP system boots and how Linux/PPC interacts with that mechanism.
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It would be nice if we could have information on how other architectures
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boot here as well. If you have anything to contribute, please
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let me know.
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1. PReP boot file
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This is the file necessary to boot PReP systems from floppy or
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hard drive. The firmware reads the PReP partition table entry
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and will load the image accordingly.
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To boot the zImage, copy it onto a floppy with dd if=zImage of=/dev/fd0h1440
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or onto a PReP hard drive partition with dd if=zImage of=/dev/sda4
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assuming you've created a PReP partition (type 0x41) with fdisk on
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/dev/sda4.
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The layout of the image format is:
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0x0 +------------+
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| | PReP partition table entry
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0x400 +------------+
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| | Bootstrap program code + data
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+------------+
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| | compressed kernel, elf header removed
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+------------+
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| | initrd (if loaded)
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+------------+
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| | Elf section table for bootstrap program
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+------------+
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2. MBX boot file
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The MBX boards can load an elf image, and relocate it to the
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proper location in memory - it copies the image to the location it was
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linked at.
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