On Feb 21,  7:23pm, Bob Slawson wrote:
> loadbsd rejects any kernel I've built with a recent link editor
> (with  LD=ld -Bstatic  in the Makefile). I noticed that
> 
> `file netbsd' linked with `ld -Bstatic -n ....' returns
> (this is from memory)
> 
> 	NetBSD/m68k pure executable binary
> 
> whereas when linked with ld.old from the 720 usr.bin
> 
> 	old sun-2 pure executable binary
> 
> `file vmunix.744' also returns "old sun-2 ..."
> 
> Is there a deep reason why this anachronism is necessary?  Are there
> differences other than the magic numbers?  I think it would be
> convenient to be able to use a current link editor when building
> kernels rather than keeping a single purpose one around.

  The kernel is not a demand-paged executable, which is what the
standard 'ld' will generate.  The first page of a demand-paged
executable is linked to address 0x2000.  The kernel has to be linked so
that the first byte of the code segment is linked at 0.  Loadbsd and the
/dev/reload magic expect this, so you need the ld.old to create the
kernel executable.

Michael

-- 
Michael L. Hitch			INTERNET:  osymh@montana.edu
Computer Consultant			BITNET:  OSYMH@MTSUNIX1.BITNET
Office of Systems and Computing Services
Montana State University	Bozeman, MT	USA

------------------------------------------------------------------------------