Re: Question

[M. Gerards]

Hi,

Quoting Sohaib Khan <address@hidden>:

>      i want to ask that what binary format the grub
> loader recongizes. when i place Linux a.out(Linux7.2)
> file either static or dynamic linked --- grub does not
> load that file. neither grub loads plain binary 
> .com(windows) file. so please tell me what file format
> grub recongizes and loads it

To be honest, I don't know much about a.out.  It doesn't make much
sense to use it.  AFAIK it is obsolete.  Another problem is, even when
statically linked you can't use the system calls.

The same is true for DOS com files, although there is a little
difference. It is possible to use DOS com files with little
modifications to GRUB I think.  Perhaps you can load the DOS com file
using the chain-loader, but I'm not sure about this.

GRUB has some loaders including a chain-loader, a Linux loader and a
multiboot loader.  If you want to load a self written kernel with GRUB
it would be interesting to use multiboot. Multiboot, basically, loads
an ELF executable.  Multiboot has many interesting features, you can
learn more about it by reading the multiboot specification with GRUB.
If you have GRUB installed you can read the info file "multiboot".

There are some useful examples of multiboot kernels like GNUMach,
KidOs, and perhaps the OSKIT test kernels.

But it is easier to help you if you tell us what you are doing.

Thanks,
Marco