[coyotos-dev] Looking for ideas - image loading

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On PC's we can use multiboot for image loading, and we can therefore
store the mkimage output in a different file than the kernel.

On mature embedded systems, we can flash the kernel and the mkimage
output to different locations.

But on immature embedded systems we often don't have any way to load
more than one file. This is also an issue with some netboot
implementations.

I am therefore wondering whether there is some simple way to merge the
kernel and the mkimage file.

So far, the best that I have come up with is to proceed as follows:

  1. Instead of performing a static link on the kernel, link it
     with -r to form a relocatable that can be processed again by
     the linker.

     [ We would do the static link here anyway as a guard against
       missing symbols. ]

  2. Add the mkimage file to the kernel binary image as a loadable
     segment in a final link step.

  3. Implement a script "coymerge" that is really a link step in
     disguise.

Does anyone know of a cleaner/better way to do this that is ready to
hand?


shap