Hello!
> > kernels. Why can't GRUB handle vmlinux format (so that no kernel
> > decompression is required)?
>
> What is the benifit from that? Do you want to slow the booting
> process down?
I think the answer is not so simple here. There are two competing
concepts, each of them has it's pluses and minuses.
On one side, it's nice to have good code shared between various systems.
One bootloader could take care of the system initialization, PnP, hardware
detection. The bootloader could eventually replace BIOS as well (or
OpenBIOS could grow up to support multiboot).
Generally, code modularization is a good thing. Two components (the OS and
the bootloader) can be upgraded independently. This approach gives the
user more choice. One can run an ultra-secure OS with the bleeding-edge
bootloader supporting the latest hardware.
There is another side of the problem. Linux wants to be as self-contained
as possible. It is good for users. You "dd" vmlinuz to a floppy and boot
on a machine with a brain-dead BIOS and you get a working system in
seconds.
Also having PnP is the bootloader doesn't mean that a really good OS can
live without PnP in the kernel. Given the popularity of hotplug interfaces
PnP or hardware initialization are doomed to stay at least in the kernels
compiled for desktop machines. Thus, features of the bootloader don't
automatically obsolete features of the kernel.
Linux goes the Microsoft's way of integrating all the code for the
users' convenience. But it can do it different by giving users the choice
as what is really convenient for them.
The choice between self-loading "vmlinuz" and multiboot-compliant
"vmlinux" can be different for different users.
> > Is there a tool to make multiboot compliant
> > vmlinux image?
I remember me seeing a patch doing exactly that. Try search engines. The
patch may be obsolete.
> IIRC, no. Even if there were such a tool, Linux couldn't receive any
> kind of benefit, as long as Linux goes its own way.
The Linux way is also sharing the code and staying away from bloat. But
it's not me to decide, as I almost don't use Linux on i386 systems now.
Regards,
Pavel Roskin
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