[coreboot] Some Notes On Building gPXE for Coreboot

[Chris Kilgour]

Peter Stuge wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 07, 2008 at 09:23:07PM -0700, Chris Kilgour wrote:
>   
>> FYI - At this point I don't plan to submit any patches to gPXE as
>> my approach is rather hackish and still experimental.
>>
>>     
> How do you think that a "proper" port of gPXE to coreboot differs
> from your approach?
>   
Off-hand I would say:

1.  The gPXE elfprefix is currently busted, it would be preferred to fix 
that so gPXE might build a well-formed ELF on its own.  At first I tried 
to fix it but gave up because of #2 below.
2. The "gPXE way" of producing final images is all about feeding a 
universal linker script, and I couldn't find a way of modifying it 
(trimming 16-bit code, getting the elfprefix right) to produce what I 
wanted without massive surgery that would affect a ton of regression 
cases.  So I went the "treat gPXE as a library" route instead.
3. I'm not sure if all the 16-bit gPXE stuff really needs to be omitted 
or if it can/should be left in the ELF.  I didn't want it, but others might.


I also don't have the bandwidth to deal with getting a patch morphed 
into shape that the gPXE maintainers would accept, but I welcome anyone 
with such inclinations to take the baton.


Chris.