This article explains how the GNU linker (GNU ld) can save disk space for symbols in the .bss section. TL;DR: If a section is of type SHT_NOBITS and if it is the last section in a LOAD segment, GNU ld uses this optimization. When you build software with a compiled Read more…
Update: I found another variant. I appended it to the end of the article. Original post: Some rudimentary ELF loaders require that p_memsz equals p_filesz for each LOAD segment in order to simplify the loading of the file. For example, the microkernels NOVA and Hedron have this restriction to bootstrap Read more…
Update: Since I published this article, I gained more knowledge from own research and hints from others. I adjusted the blog post. Thanks for the help! When it comes to low-level systems engineering and producing binaries, such as firmware or kernels, dealing with linkers and especially linker scripts feels like Read more…