GRUB doesn't handle large linux kernels

[zchen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Hi all,

I was trying the 2.4.0 linux kernel with XFS and KDB patch from SGI. 
the bzImage size is 1325639 and the vmlinux size is 5859394.  stage 2 of
GRUB loads it find but the kenel immediately bails with the following
mesg:

invalid compressed format (err=1)
  --System halted

I ran into same problem when trying to load the kernel with bpbatch and
kmonte (loading linux from linux).  LILO however, was able to boot it
with no problem.  Is this a bug in GRUB?

I am curious what boot loader people have been using for these large
kernels.  Why can't GRUB handle vmlinux format (so that no kernel
decompression is required)?  Is there a tool to make multiboot compliant
vmlinux image?

Thanks!