Schematically speaking, I think a file in BINARY format is essentially a simulation of what the corresponding ELF format shall be in the memory when it is loaded by Linux executable loader.
While an ELF file use attributes to specify how much pad shall be filled between different sections, the BINARY file fills the pad with actual zeros. But of course the BINARY file fill no pad at the head.
To transfer vmlinux into vmlinux.bin, the job of boot loader get simpler. It does not have to understand the ELF format to arrange the memory layout for the kernel, all has been done by the OBJCOPY at the build-time.
2006/12/7, Ajay Jain <ajain@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> What do you mean by "Binary" in this question? Most binary files
> *are* ELF files :
Ok, more precisely.. "$(OBJCOPY) -S -O binary vmlinux vmlinux.bin".
1. How are these different. I want to know all the differences.
2. I do not need a loader for vmlinux.bin, Why?
Thanks.
--
Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel.
Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/
FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
