Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Thu, 22 Dec 2005, Samual Acorn wrote:

> *gets the WD-40 out*
>
> heres a quote from that page;
> "Using zImage instead of bzImage avoids the problem (since zImage is
> not loaded high)"
>
> renaming the file wont change anything... if its compressed it must be
> decompressed (loadlin detects the compression... AFAIK the naming of
> the file is for convenience only) .... and since there is only 640k of
> low mem that means it gets decompressed into high memory.... and in
> order to (properly) load anything beyond the 1MB barrier A20 must be
> turned on...
>
> (zimages can only be made as big as ~500k because anything bigger wont
> fit into low memory... )

Thanks for this explanation.  Does it compile as gzipped vs bzipped?

I made my latest kernel as a bzImage but it is 484K.  Would it boot faster 
or more reliably as a zimage?

> so why does basic linux suffer? my theory is that the problem is not
> with loadlin but DOS... DOS 7 will load himem.sys regardless if it is
> in config.sys or not... IIRC himem.sys turns A20 on.... so with A20

I am using DOS 7.1 standalone (from China).  I just turned on the computer 
and hit F5 to bypass my startrup files.  Typed 'mem /c /p' (I don't know 
where this 'mem' came from)
Modules using memory below 1Mb:
MS-DOS  79K conventional memory
COMMAND 10K conventional memory
Nothing in upper memory
FREE  550K  (with various drivers loaded it goes down to about 528K, less 
if I add scsi or usb drivers)

I don't see himem.sys here.

If I don't hit F5 I actually have MORE free lower memory:
        conventional upper
system  11K             7K
himem   1
emm386  3
aspi8dos 21     (for scsi zip drive)
doskey   4
oakcdrom                35
command                 7
mscdex                  23
Free    600             1

If I had a zImage of 600K would it boot from this system?

Note there is no 'MS-DOS 79K' - it must be taking over the functions of 
himem.sys, 'system' and other things by default.

> already on.. running loadlin just adds to any problems that may be
> there since it might try to turn it on... or see if its on.... and
> ceartain methods of checking if its on will turn it off (or viceversa)
> or cause other hardware... like the trident card... to get messed
> up...

What exactly does the trident card do wrong?  I did not follow the 
explanation.

> a trick; format a floppy and 'sys' dos to it... delete command.com
> from that floppy and make a config.sys with a single line in it;
>
> SHELL="loadlin ........." (where .... is loadlins paramiters)
>
> you can of course keep baslin on the harddrive... just change the
> loadlin parameters to point to where the kernel and root filesystems
> are.... that way you have a clean DOS that only booted to real
> mode.... letting loadlin and linux do whatever they wish with A20 and
> the system memory...  this would of course only be a temorary "see if
> it fixes the problem" type of thing...

What exactly does this do?

> btw, bigger kernels also have better support for broken hardware...
> that is... if they are loaded properly...

Is it possible to rewrite the kernel source code or the Makefile or 
something in order to get a smaller 2.4 kernel that does not work on quite 
as much hardware but fits on a floppy disk better?

> YMMV
>
> On 22/12/05, sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:
> > It says to avoid a certain hardware problem by using zImage instead of
> > bzImage.  But if the kernel is over a certain size (around 500K?) you
> > are not allowed to make a zImage, only a bzImage.  I have been renaming my
> > bzImages to zimage and loadlin works anyway.  Are these gzipped and
> > bzipped files that loadlin can detect without .gz or .bz2 ?
> >
> >
> > On Thu, 22 Dec 2005, Samual Acorn wrote:
> >
> > > playing around with lowlevel hardware access in windoze 2k (yes i know
> > > its a no no... but i like playing) i had problems getting a ceartain
> > > programs timing to work properly... would slow waaaay down till i hit
> > > a key (any key)... then "0x60" flew out of a rather rusty part of my
> > > brain... fixed my problem and lead me to search for what all (if
> > > anything other than the keyboard) is at 0x60 and i came across a
> > > rather interesting page... might be of some use;
> > >
> > > http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/kbd/A20.html
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > --sam
> > > http://mephitus.renamon.org/
> > > "When you've done something right, no one will be sure you've done
> > > anything at all." -- Futurama
> > > --
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> >
> > keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
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>
>
> --
> --sam
> http://mephitus.renamon.org/
> "When you've done something right, no one will be sure you've done
> anything at all." -- Futurama
> --
> _______________________________________________
> BasLinux mailing list
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org