Regd head.S

I got some interesting links that clarified me of the above queries.

It seems that head.S is part of the kernel and acts as one of the initial part of the kernel. From the linux HOW-TO html's name 'Kernel_head.html', i think that it can also be termed as Kernel Head. The head.S is used along with the 'main C routine' after decompression to initialize all parts of the kernel which inturn will show lot of messages and finally the 'init' process or the first 'linuxrc' variant on an initial RAM disk will be started.

Bootloaders do not give the control to the head.S in first hand. It seems that the control is given directly to setup.S in first hand. Bootloaders should load bzImage into memory and setup "real-mode kernel header", esp. type_of_loader, then pass control to bsetup/setup.S directly. setup.S is responsible for getting the system data from the BIOS and putting them into appropriate places in system memory.

bootsect.S comes into picture only if it has to be done via diskette.

The below link clearly states the parts of bootloader and the parts of the linux kernel.

Other references -

Lemme know if you have some other thoughts.

Karthik Balaguru