linux/arch/i386
Vivek Goyal 6569580de7 [PATCH] i386: Distinguish absolute symbols
Ld knows about 2 kinds of symbols,  absolute and section
relative.  Section relative symbols symbols change value
when a section is moved and absolute symbols do not.

Currently in the linker script we have several labels
marking the beginning and ending of sections that
are outside of sections, making them absolute symbols.
Having a mixture of absolute and section relative
symbols refereing to the same data is currently harmless
but it is confusing.

This must be done carefully as newer revs of ld do not place
symbols that appear in sections without data and instead
ld makes those symbols global :(

My ultimate goal is to build a relocatable kernel.  The
safest and least intrusive technique is to generate
relocation entries so the kernel can be relocated at load
time.  The only penalty would be an increase in the size
of the kernel binary.  The problem is that if absolute and
relocatable symbols are not properly specified absolute symbols
will be relocated or section relative symbols won't be, which
is fatal.

The practical motivation is that when generating kernels that
will run from a reserved area for analyzing what caused
a kernel panic, it is simpler if you don't need to hard code
the physical memory location they will run at, especially
for the distributions.

[AK: and merged:]

o Also put a message so that in future people can be aware of it and
  avoid introducing absolute symbols.

Signed-off-by: Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Signed-off-by: Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@in.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>
2006-12-07 02:14:03 +01:00
..
boot [PATCH] Some config.h removals 2006-10-01 00:39:34 -07:00
crypto [CRYPTO] api: Get rid of flags argument to setkey 2006-09-21 11:41:02 +10:00
kernel [PATCH] i386: Distinguish absolute symbols 2006-12-07 02:14:03 +01:00
lib [PATCH] separate bdi congestion functions from queue congestion functions 2006-10-20 10:26:35 -07:00
mach-default [PATCH] irq-flags: i386: Use the new IRQF_ constants 2006-07-02 13:58:47 -07:00
mach-es7000 [PATCH] Compilation fix for ES7000 when no ACPI is specified in config (i386) 2006-03-23 07:38:04 -08:00
mach-generic [PATCH] i386: Replace i386 open-coded cmdline parsing with 2006-09-26 10:52:32 +02:00
mach-visws [PATCH] visws build fix 2006-10-28 11:30:52 -07:00
mach-voyager [PATCH] i386: Initialize the per-CPU data area 2006-12-07 02:14:02 +01:00
math-emu [PATCH] i386: fix must_checks 2006-12-07 02:14:00 +01:00
mm [PATCH] mm: use symbolic names instead of indices for zone initialisation 2006-10-11 11:14:14 -07:00
oprofile [PATCH] oprofile: ppro: need to enable/disable all the counters 2006-09-29 09:18:11 -07:00
pci [PATCH] x86: remove last two pci_find offenders in the core code 2006-12-07 02:14:03 +01:00
power [PATCH] Change the name of pagedir_nosave 2006-09-26 08:49:01 -07:00
defconfig [PATCH] i386: Update defconfig 2006-12-07 02:14:00 +01:00
Kconfig Attack of "the the"s in arch 2006-10-03 22:21:02 +02:00
Kconfig.cpu [PATCH] uml: fix processor selection to exclude unsupported processors and features 2006-10-11 11:14:20 -07:00
Kconfig.debug [PATCH] lockdep: irqtrace subsystem, i386 support 2006-07-03 15:27:03 -07:00
Makefile [PATCH] x86: Use -maccumulate-outgoing-args 2006-10-21 18:37:01 +02:00
Makefile.cpu [PATCH] x86-64: Use -mtune=generic for generic kernels 2006-03-25 09:10:52 -08:00