Hello, Mike Hammer <mike-hammer@usa.net> wrote: > I understand that netboot uses compression to get the > kernel code/data size down to 32KB. It's not clear just > what minimal functionalities are present when building > the NE2000 compatible kernel as 16KB rather than 32KB. With the minimal bootrom kernel it is not possible to boot across gateways and from different servers (because some of the ARP code has been conditionally left out, so it's not possible to send or receive ARP packets - the bootrom always uses the hardware address for the server which replied to the BOOTP request), and BOOTP tag menus are not supported. Since the last feature is no longer necessary due to the possible use of MGL you should not see any real functionality decrease when using the minimal kernel, unless you want to boot in a big network with distributed servers. > When the compressed code expands into conventional > memory space (< 640KB), what's the expanded size for 16KB > and 32KB? You can find out by adding the size of the bootrom kernel image file (kernel.bin) plus the size of the packet driver binary plus the size of any additional program you might have linked in (like the ANSI driver or the network debugger) plus some additional bytes for storing the packet driver command line. gero. -- If we can't fix it -- we'll fix it so nobody can. - B. Gibbons -- Gero Kuhlmann, Hannover 0511/6497525 (Voice) gero@gkminix.han.de
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