Re: [PATCH]: grub: Allow to control objcopy '-B' argument from foo.rmk files.

[David Miller]

From: "Yoshinori K. Okuji" <address@hidden>
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 19:23:23 +0900

> On Saturday 11 April 2009 17:08:31 David Miller wrote:
>> This patch allows a platform to specify the image file output
>> format, it also adds the --strip-unneeded option to the objcopy
>> invocation as well.
> 
> IIRC, --strip-unneeded was dangerous.

I would like to have information about this :-)

We do want to retain symbols (and potentially even debugging
information) in the foo.exec files.  But the final images are pure
binary blobs and there is no real use for any of the symbol
information.

In fact, the the way i386 uses this, it outputs "binary" format
images.  I can't even think of where it would place any symbol
tables :-)

On sparc64 this will actually matter, because we need to use
a.out format images for the boot blocks.  If I leave the symbols
in there, this brings the boot block over it's required 512-byte
size.

>> I've left the i386-pc.mk portion of this patch out of the posting,
>> but rest assured I will check that part in once this gets an ACK :-)
> 
> I don't like "IMG_FMT". How about "FORMAT"? If too ambiguous, "IMAGE_FORMAT". 
> I prefer not to use uncommon abbrevs.

That's fine with me, I'll update the patch once the strip issue
is resolved.