kernel startup

atul.sabharwal at exgate.tek.com atul.sabharwal at exgate.tek.com
Sat Feb 11 10:53:33 EST 2006


> Normally is it the uboot that uncompresses the kernel or the kernel
uncompress itself? 

>>How would something compressed uncompress itself?  If u-boot is being
used 
>>it will uncompress a compressed kernel and put the image at physical
0.

Small correction. Just like a self extracting binary, a kernel can have
a decompression code prepended to the start of kernel which can
decompress the 
Kernel.  This is how redboot for xscale is structured or syslinux /lilo
for x86. 

Although u-boot has simplified this step by doing the CRC checksum of
the
uiMage header as well as data and also decompress the kernel. Based on
load
address, entry point, the kernel can start executing.  

Now, whether cache is enable or not, MMU is enabled/disabled depends on
the
Developer. In current u-boot, the MMU is not used. I-Cache is On and
D-cache
is off.

Best Regards,

Atul




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