Re: what is bzImage?

[Steven Pritchard <steve@silug.org>]

John Corey said:
> Alan Wilson wrote:
> > I am sure the gang will correct me if I am wrong, but bzImage is compressed;
> > zImage is not.
> > On Sat, 17 Jul 1999, Travis Davies wrote:
[bzImage vs. zImage]
> > > Whats the difference?
> Almost.  zImage uses gzip to compress, bzImage uses bzip.  BZip is a bit
> better compression program than gzip, so your kernel image will be
> smaller and fit into memory.

Sorry, wrong again.

Both zImage and bzImage are compressed with gzip.  The kernel includes
a mini-gunzip to uncompress the kernel and boot into it.  The
difference is that the old zImage uncompresses the kernel into low
memory (the first 640k), and bzImage uncompresses the kernel into high
memory (over 1M).  The only problem is there are a (very) few machines
where bzImage is known to have problems (because the machines are
buggy).  Supposedly bzImage actually boots faster, but other than
that, there's no difference in the way the system *runs*.

My rule is that if I can't fit all my drivers into the zImage, I need
to modularize more.

(Didn't this just come up on the list a couple of months ago?)

Steve
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