Re: System is too big

Cameron Simpson (cs@zip.com.au)
Wed, 7 Apr 1999 06:27:57 +0000

Brian Gerst <bgerst@quark.vpplus.com>
(and many others!)
wrote:
| > | make bzImage
| >
| > Everyone says this, and I know it works (had to figure it out myself
| > some months ago) but I'd like to know: bzip2 is a better compression;
| > if it's just the better compression ratio then people could be bitten
| > by this again in a while, with no fallback. If, on the other hand, the
| > bzImage is a fundamentally different storage layout without this
| > (undocumented?) size limit, why make a zImage at all these days?
|
| make bzImage does not use bzip2 compression.

And, lo, my ignorance is revealed!

| It is a "big zImage". It
| changes some things so that the kernel image can be loaded directly into
| extended memory. The reason there is a size limitation on a zImage is
| that is is loaded into conventional memory (first 640k), since the
| processor is still in real mode while the kernel is loaded.

Aha! Thank you, this make perfect sense.

And let me take this opportunity to thank Intel, without whose design
decisions this would never have been an issue :-)

--
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743        cs@zip.com.au    http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/


Intel: only half of "intelligence". - David White <david@research.canon.com.au>


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