Relocatable kernel support for x86 This feature (enabled with CONFIG_RELOCATABLE) isn't very noticeable for end-users but it's quite interesting from a kernel POV(point of view). Until now, it was a requeriment that a i386 kernel was loaded at a fixed memory address in order to work, loading it in a different place wouldn't work. This feature allows to compile a kernel that can be loaded at different 4K-aligned addresses, but always below 1 GB, with no runtime overhead. Kdump users (a feature introduced in 2.6.13 that it triggers kexec in a kernel crash in order to boot a kernel that has been previously loaded at a 'empty' address, then runs that kernel, saves the memory where the crashed kernel was placed, dumps it in a file and continues booting the system) will benefit from this because until now the "rescue kernel" need to be compiled with different configuration options in order to make it bootable at a different address. With a relocatable kernel, the same kernel can be boot at different addresses.