Re: [v2 PATCH] RISC-V: Add a PE/COFF compliant Image header.

[Atish Patra]

On 5/17/19 10:39 AM, Paul Walmsley wrote:
> On Wed, 1 May 2019, Atish Patra wrote:
>
> > Currently, last stage boot loaders such as U-Boot can accept only
> > uImage which is an unnecessary additional step in automating boot flows.
> >
> > Add a PE/COFF compliant image header that boot loaders can parse and
> > directly load kernel flat Image. The existing booting methods will continue
> > to work as it is.
>
> One other thought: as I think you or someone else may have pointed out,
> this isn't the PE/COFF header itself, but rather an ersatz DOS stub
> header, that is apparently quite close to what some EFI bootloaders
> require.  So from that point of view, it's probably best to just write in
> the patch description that the idea is to add something that resembles an
> MS-DOS stub header, and that the motivations are that:
>
> 1. it resembles what ARM64 is doing, and there's not much point in
> inventing another boot header format that's completely different

Yup. I will add this in the next version.

> 2. it can be easily converted into an MS-DOS header that some EFI
> bootloaders apparently require, by tweaking a few bytes at the beginning

I mentioned all the required changes in the proposed header to so that 
EFI bootloaders can load it directly. Probably, I will clarify it more 
to avoid confusion.


> - Paul


--
Regards,
Atish