Does the linux kernel still require as86/ld86 for assembling its boot sector
code? I realize some of you are using Hurd and/or a BSD system, but using
this should minimize the overall inconvenience and hopefully eliminiate it
altogether for people building grub on linux systems.
On Thu, Aug 05, 1999 at 05:19:40AM +0900, OKUJI Yoshinori wrote:
> I have been thinking about the requirement for binutils. Most people
> have still been using ``old'' binutils, such as 2.8.1.0.x and
> 2.9.1. But we have recommened that the users should upgrade their
> binutils to a beta version. Although later binutils is definitely
> superior to older one because of the better support for 16bits code,
> it is never good to depend on any beta release.
>
> So I want to diminish the requirement as soon as possible. There are
> at least two possible ways:
>
> 1) Support any version of binutils. This means that we must assemble
> the 16bits code manually like grub-0.5.
> 2) Don't use gas for the 16bits code any more. Instead, use nasm or
> something appropriate.
>
> The first way must be really a pain, since we must assemble the 16bits
> code at hand to produce the real mode machine code. The second way
> requires an external program to be installed, but it will not be much
> work, because it's much easier to install nasm than to upgrade
> binutils safely. Note that binutils is used for system-wide purpose but
> not only for GRUB. Any comment is welcome.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> OKUJI Yoshinori <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ^o-o^
> http://duff.kuicr.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~okuji (in English) m /
>
