Thanks syed,

Ok, I did a little more digging...

On 22/11/11 16:34, sk.syed2 wrote:

quoted

      /vmlinux                                        2,629,659  bytes
      /vmlinux.o                                      2,889,050  bytes
      /arch/i386/boot/bzImage                         1,104,864  bytes
      /arch/x86/boot/bzImage                          1,104,864  bytes
      /arch/x86/boot/vmlinux.bin                      1,092,060  bytes
      /arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux               1,099,538  bytes
      /arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux.bin           2,094,132  bytes
      /arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux.bin.gz        1,074,711  bytes

I understand that /arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux.bin.gz is a compressed
version of /arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux.bin, and
/arch/i386/boot/bzImage and /arch/x86/boot/bzImage are the same file and
that it is the 16-bit boot code + /arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux.bin.gz

This is correct.

quoted

but I don't understand the rest...

I traced it all out. I sent a separate message to the ML documenting the
bzImage build chain - It's rather fascinating

quoted

My guess is that /vmlinux.o is the ELF image generated by the compiler +
linker stage and /vmlinux may be /vmlinux.o objdump'd into a raw binary and
perhaps /arch/x86/boot/vmlinux.bin is a further stripped version
of/vmlinux, but I'm at a loss with /arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux

vmlinux is ELF image with ELF header. So actual point of kernel entry
would be at an offset, somewhere after the ELF header.
vmlinux.bin is what you would get after doing
#objcopy -O binary vmlinux vmlinux.bin.
vmlinux.bin has only obj code and nothing else.

To be more precise:

arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux.bin is the result of
#objcopy -R .comment -S vmlinux
so it is still an ELF image

arch/x86/boot/vmlinux.bin is the result of:
#objcopy -O binary -R .note -R .comment -S arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux

arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux has the decompression stub + compressed
version of arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux.bin

quoted

In any event, it looks like either /arch/x86/boot/compressed/vmlinux.bin or
/vmlinux is what I need to copy into RAM @ 0x100000 (1MiB) which is where
my non-relocatable kernel is compiled to.

copy vmlinux.bin.

I don't think either is what I want - arch/x86/boot/vmlinux.bin still
contains a compressed kernel. And the contents of the compressed section is
an ELF image which requires more memcpys and memsets

What I really want, I think, is:

#objcopy -O binary -R .comment -S vmlinux

Which is not generated during the build process

quoted

 - How to setup the memory map (keeping in mind I have 2GB of contiguous
  memory with no BIOS/ACPI etc to worry about clobbering
 - Any other tricks I need to be aware of..

Check if x86 kernel expects some parameters(like machineid, bootargs
location etc) in some registers.
Check if x86 has low level debug support(like DEBUG_LL).
Also you might want to check how initial page tables are being setup in kernel.

I need to have a good look at what goes into arch/x86/boot/setup.bin - That
will really tell me what I need to do

Thanks,

Graeme