GRUB/GRUB2 and gzip

[Heath S]

The GRUB legacy manual states:

 Support automatic decompression

Can decompress files which were compressed by gzip. This function is both automatic and transparent to the user (i.e. all functions operate upon the uncompressed contents of the specified files). This greatly reduces a file size and loading time, a particularly great benefit for floppies.

It is conceivable that some kernel modules should be loaded in a compressed state, so a different module-loading command can be specified to avoid uncompressing the modules.

I'm sure GRUB2 will support this and I know GRUB legacy does. My question is what version of gzip is this compatible with? I'm not familiar with all of the gzip versions and the impact of changes therein but how are these changes handled by GRUB/GRUB2? Does GRUB/GRUB2 have its own way of uncompressing the kernel image that is independent of the gzip version?

 

Thanks for your help in advance.