x86_32: CONFIG_PHYSICAL_START problem

[Randy Dunlap]

background:

I was trying to debug a MIPS build error, but it wasn't MIPS-specific,
so I did this, using the MIPS .config file:

make ARCH=i386 O=xx32 olddefconfig

Little to my knowledge, this came up with
CONFIG_PHYSICAL_START=0x81000000

Then I built the i386 kernel, and got this message:
ld: kernel image bigger than KERNEL_IMAGE_SIZE

so I promptly changed many =y drivers etc. to =m
and still got the same ld error message.

Well, it must be something else, he said.

I tracked it down to this large value of CONFIG_PHYSICAL_START
and changed it back to its default value, then the kernel
built with no problems.

So far I haven't been able to track the chain of values/changes
that involve PHYSICAL_START, __PAGE_OFFSET, LOAD_OFFSET, etc.

Anyway, I would like to see PHYSICAL_START limited to some
acceptable range of values in arch/x86/Kconfig,
or at a minimum, a little bit better error message coming
from arch/x86/kernel/vmlinux.lds.S:

. = ASSERT((_end - LOAD_OFFSET <= KERNEL_IMAGE_SIZE),
	   "kernel image bigger than KERNEL_IMAGE_SIZE");

so maybe:

. = ASSERT((_end - LOAD_OFFSET <= KERNEL_IMAGE_SIZE),
	   "kernel image bigger than KERNEL_IMAGE_SIZE or load address is too large");
(or start address)

Comments?

thanks.
-- 
~Randy
Reported-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>