[parisc-linux] Today's boot experience on a 735

[Philipp Rumpf]

> > You should be able to use "_edata" and "_end" to figure out how much 
> > memory to initialize to zero at startup, or you could have the boot 
> > loader do that for you -- the information is in the a.out aux header.
> 
> I haven't verified this myself but I believe others have determined
> that the kernel needs to clear unitialized data itself because of the
> various different way it is loaded.

The problem is we need to know where free memory starts for our memory
allocator - who does the BSS clearing is another issue.

> > By the way, the SOM linker does support "scripts" of a sort. They're 
> > called k-files (because you use the -k option to specify them), and they 
> > allow you to control the placement of your spaces and subspaces within 
> > the address space.
> 
> That's good to know and it might provide a better way for the kernel to
> determine its end.

Is anyone reasonably fluent in whatever language ld uses ?

	Philipp Rumpf