[9fans] ld.com

[9fans] ld.com

[lucio]

According to the manual, ld.com is a stripped down version of 9load,
intended to fit in 64KB.  It doesn't, my "production" version is:

	--rwxrwxr-x M 9 sys sys 73464 Feb 18  2007 /386/ld.com

which seems to be the current version.  Any suggestions?  I don't
really want to rebuild it unnecessarily.

++L

Re: [9fans] ld.com

[Eris Discordia]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 14:33:09 -0000, <lucio@proxima.alt.za> wrote:

> According to the manual, ld.com is a stripped down version of 9load,
> intended to fit in 64KB.  It doesn't, my "production" version is:
>
> 	--rwxrwxr-x M 9 sys sys 73464 Feb 18  2007 /386/ld.com
>
> which seems to be the current version.  Any suggestions?  I don't
> really want to rebuild it unnecessarily.
>
> ++L
>

The one on Plan 9 ISO image is exactly 73,464 bytes, like yours. Strange
thing, because MS-DOS COM executables are exact memory dumps (no
loader/header/relocation) designed for 16 bit systems which had a
"segmented" memory model (segmented in the ancient sense of the word).
They must fit into one 16-bit segment; exactly 64K.

--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

Re: [9fans] ld.com

[Russ Cox]

> According to the manual, ld.com is a stripped down version of 9load,
> intended to fit in 64KB.  It doesn't, my "production" version is:
> which seems to be the current version.  Any suggestions?  I don't
> really want to rebuild it unnecessarily.

ld.com should be tossed away.  you're supposed to use 9load these days,
which doesn't have those limitations.

russ

Re: [9fans] ld.com

[lucio]

> ld.com should be tossed away.  you're supposed to use 9load these days,
> which doesn't have those limitations.

Maybe, but at the time I hoped that ld.com would allow me to overcome
a problem with formatting a Compact Flash card I kept getting wrong (I
have got it right eventually, now I need to document how) and secondly
it doesn't help to have documentation that conflicts with reality.  I
think it is a privilege other OSes can't afford to be able to say in
the documentation "Ld.com has grown beyond 64K and therefore can no
longer be used, but it may be possible to strip it further, feel free
to contribute fixes".

That said, I have managed to get 9load into place in a 9FAT partition,
but now I cannot run 9pc.gz kernels newer than
/n/sourcesdump/2005/1106/plan9/386/9pc.gz on the SiS 550 processor.
I'm not sure what broke, but of course some of the guesswork:

term% grep -n SiS /n/sourcesdump/2005/1110/plan9/sys/src/9/pc/devarch.c
619:  * SiS 55x
623: 	{5,	0,	23,	"SiS 55x",},	/* guesswork */
678: 	else if(strncmp(m->cpuidid, "SiS SiS SiS ", 12) == 0)

may be at fault.  Suggestions welcome.

++L

Re: [9fans] ld.com

[erik quanstrom]

nope.  from sourcesdump the latest ld.com (rounded off to the nearest month)
under 64k is 

	/n/sourcesdump/2004/0901/plan9/386/ld.com

why not boot directly to 9load?

- erik

[9fans] ld.com

[Aivar Guitar]

Hi

have problem with ld.com - Program too big to fit in memory :(

can .com file be more than 64k ? current ld.com:
--rwxrwxr-x glenda   sys   73464 Feb 18 02:45 ld.com