Booting homebrew ELF kernel on NewWorld OpenFirmware 3.0?

[Andrei Warkentin]

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Hello,

I trying to cobble together a simple Hello World ``kernel'' on the  
mac, and have a question concerning the booting specifics. I  
understand that OF 3.0 groks ELF, but the ELF file should contain  
some special information in the note section (and have the PT_NOTE  
thing). This special information entails the values for load-base and  
real-base (among other things) that are to be used. Here is where I  
become confused.

There are plenty of warnings on the web (*BSD sites, usually) to not  
mess with load-base and real-base in OF 3.0, since doing so can  
inadvertently result in overwriting OF in flash, thus bricking the  
computer. I don't want to do that to my new iBook :-). Yet, looking  
at BSD's ofwboot, yaboot, and NewWorld booting code in Linux, I see  
that  all of these mess with the load-base in the note descriptor -  
setting it to 0x4000 (which, interestingly enough is the default load- 
base in OF 1.0.5, and not a good one for linux at that) or 0x3000. Is  
there a reason for not leaving this at 0xffffffff thus using whatever  
the default OF 3.0 one is? (The BSD bootloader sites assure me it's a  
good one).

I'm sorry if this a tad OT, but I realized this is probably the best  
place to ask this question (to which I can't find an answer anywhere)  
since you guys probably eat this stuff for lunch :-).

Thank you very much and have a good day.
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