Re: [PATCH v2] grub-core: Build fixes for i386

[Daniel Kiper]

Hey Adrian,

On Tue, May 18, 2021 at 12:58:07PM +0200, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> Hello Jan!
>
> On 5/18/21 12:47 PM, Jan (janneke) Nieuwenhuizen wrote:
> > or install an x86 cross-build environment on x86-linux (32bit!) and
> > configure to cross build and make, e.g., do something like
>
> Are we talking about a toolchain which exclusively supports 32-bit builds
> only? If yes, wouldn't it make sense to exclude the whole file relocator64.S?
>
> I think hacking the opcodes into the assembly sources directly to allow 
> assembling
> the assembly source file with a pure 32-bit assembler seems like a crude 
> workaround
> that I wouldn't use in an upstream source tree.
>
> It seems the issue is more that you are trying to build 64-bit code with a 
> toolchain
> which exclusively supports 32-bit code which I'm not sure is something that 
> can be
> officially supported.

When I was looking at the issue first time I thought in the same way.
Though after some thinking I realized that it is perfectly valid to
start 64-bit kernel from 32-bit bootloader which was build in 32-bit
environment. So, I think it makes sense to take that patch, which is not
very complicated and does not introduce anything which did not exist
earlier in the relocator64.S, even a such scenario is not very common
today.

Daniel