binutils 2.19 issue with kernel link

[Kumar Gala]

On Jul 10, 2009, at 9:37 AM, Kumar Gala wrote:

>
> On Jul 9, 2009, at 11:15 PM, Alan Modra wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Jul 09, 2009 at 02:31:53PM -0500, Edmar Wienskoski-RA8797  
>> wrote:
>>> I understand your arguments, but there is something inconsistent  
>>> about this.
>>> If I change the script to be:
>>>      _end3 = . ;
>>>      . = _end3;
>>>      . = ALIGN(PAGE_SIZE);
>>>      _end = . ;
>>>      PROVIDE32 (end = .);
>>> }
>>> The result is corrected:
>>> c067f678 A _end3
>>> c0680000 A _end
>>>
>>> Why the apuinfo section with zero VMA sometimes interfere with "."  
>>> and
>>> sometimes not ?
>>
>> I said it was weird in my last email.  Not so.  The orphan gets  
>> placed
>> between
>>
>>      _end3 = . ;
>>      . = _end3;
>>
>> So dot is restored after the orphan section sets it.
>
> This seems to be a bit of a chick and egg scenario.  Older kernel  
> linker scripts aren't going to cover all sections and thus may have  
> orphan sections.  How do we ensure _end can be set properly under  
> such conditions?

Not sure if this helps, but I've isolated down the version of binutils  
that changes to:

binutils-2.19		_end is what we expect
binutils-2.19.1		_end is what we expect
binutils-2.19.50.0.1	_end is what we expect
binutils-2.19.51.0.1	_end is 00001000

 From the release notes:

binutils-2.19.50.0.1 is based on CVS binutils 2008 1007
binutils-2.19.51.0.1 is based on CVS binutils 2009 0106

- k