Why vmlinux.bin are changed from raw image to elf for x86 ?

[Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu]

On Sat, 02 Mar 2013 16:36:43 +0800, Jacky said:
> The "-O binary" is removed. And I don't find any changelog.

A quick course on researching kernel development history...

Step 1:  'git blame arch/x86/boot/compressed/Maekfile'

That gives us the line:

099e1377 (Ian Campbell        2008-02-13 20:54:58 +0000 42) OBJCOPYFLAGS_vmlinux.bin :=  -R .comment -S

(Fortunately, this is the commit we wanted - figuring out how to get git to
trace through the history if a subsequent commit had touched this line is
left as an exercise for the reader :)

Step 2: 'git log 099e1377' gives us this:

commit 099e1377269a47ed30a00ee131001988e5bcaa9c
Author: Ian Campbell <ijc at hellion.org.uk>
Date:   Wed Feb 13 20:54:58 200

    x86: use ELF format in compressed images.

    Signed-off-by: Ian Campbell <ijc at hellion.org.uk>
    Cc: Ian Campbell <ijc at hellion.org.uk>
    Cc: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy at goop.org>
    Cc: virtualization at lists.linux-foundation.org
    Cc: H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com>
    Cc: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy at goop.org>
    Cc: virtualization at lists.linux-foundation.org
    Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo at elte.hu>
    Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx at linutronix.de>

The one-liner summary matches exactly with what we're interested in,
so it's quite likely the commit we care about.

Step 3:  That's a pretty damned sparse Changelog. Fortunately, that's enough to
feed to Google, and in about 25 seconds, I find this message:

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/902407

 [PATCHv3 1/3] x86: use ELF format in compressed images.
This allows other boot loaders such as the Xen domain builder the
opportunity to extract the ELF file.


So there's the complete patch, including the things it touched
besides the Makefile, plus the reason for doing it.

Have a nice day.. ;)
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