Re: New FS driver (and support for a new OS).

[Kurt Skauen]

"Jochen Hoenicke" <address@hidden> writes:

> On Oct 31, Kurt Skauen wrote:
> > The only solution I found to this (other than hacking the
> > linker-scripts) was to strip away the offending sections with the "-R"
> > option to objcopy.
> > 
> > The resulting makfile rule:
> > 
> > %: %.exec
> >     $(OBJCOPY) -O binary -R .hash -R .dynsym -R .dynstr -R .rel.text \
> >     -R .rel.data -R .rel.got -R .rel.rodata -R .dynamic $< $@
> > 
> > Could this cause problems on some other platforms? Or can it be left
> > as it is? Or does anyobody know about a better solution to this
> > problem?
> 
> I don't think that stripping unused sections can cause problems.  But
> the cleanest solution is probably to write a ".lds" script describing
> how to layout the data.

Are you sure this is a more "clean" solution? It seems to me that
hacking the linker scripts have a larger potential for breaking stuff
than is the case when removing known sections. The reason I used -R to
remove sections I didn't need instead of -j to include sections I
needed is that I don't know what sections might be needed on other
platforms while I'm pritty sure that f.ex. the symbol table wont be
needed in the flat image. The same goes for the linker script, how do
you write a script that is guaranteed to work for all platforms?

 
> > > > I'm also wondering if the filesystem driver must follow the GNU coding
> > > > style?
> > > 
> > >   It should.
> > 
> > So I have to rewrite it?
> > Anybody who know about a portable code-obfuscator? :)
> 
> regarding formatting: man indent
> 
> Changing the variable names to gnu style is probably not so important.
> If you get difficulties to maintain the code if you change the names,
> it is against the intention of coding standards.

Changing the names whould indead make it harder to maintain since it
whould be inconcistency between the original header files and the one
used in GRUB. If I don't have to change the variable and member names
"indent" seem to obfuscate it enough to please most GNU developers
and I can quickly undo much of the damage with the autoindenter in
Emacs when I have to edit the file.

Thanks for the hint.


> > >   BTW, I think you will also have to send a copyright assignment to
> > > the FSF. Gordon will describe how to send it.
> > 
> > Why? And what do this imply?
> 
> The FSF needs to hold the copyright for their projects. This ensures
> that the FSF has the legal right to distribute the package, and the
> right to defend its free status in court if necessary.

Ok. I will wait for Gordon to come with the description then.

-- 
Kurt Skauen. ( http://www.atheos.cx/ )

"There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take
credit. Try to be in the first group, there is less competition there." __
Indira Gandhi