On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Chris Tribo wrote:

: > If all versions of Open Firmware can use ofwboot.xcf to load a kernel, then
: > why is ofwboot.elf necessary?  Shouldn't we just avoid confusion and only
: > provide ofwboot.xcf?
: 
: 	Well..., in future Apple may drop XCOFF loading from OFW. Plus, I
: think the ELF loader actually reads the load-base properly unlike the
: XCOFF loader in early versions of OFW. Can OFW tftp boot ELF with v 3+?

If the XCOFF loader is supposed to work under all OFW's, then effort should
be put towards making it work properly.  A unified booter is a definite goal
of NetBSD; that type of thing was done with a little Magic on the sparc port
(where sun4 and sun4c/m boot very differently).

We can certainly have an ELF loader, but if all *current* OFW's support the
XCOFF loader, focusing on XCOFF makes the booting instructions a bit
simpler.

-- 
-- Todd Vierling <tv@wasabisystems.com>  *  http://www.wasabisystems.com/
-- Speed, stability, security, and support.  Wasabi NetBSD:  Run with it.