Hello,
to give the topic a better meaning and to summarize what I think is currently happening along with some "pictures" for a better understanding:
We are starting with code (c) and data (d) somewhere in the memory:
---------- |cd | ----------
The relocation in start.S should achieve this:
---------- | cd| ----------
That means code and data should be moved upwards. What currently is happening is the following:
---------- | d c | ----------
The code is moved upwards, but that code still uses the data at d. This results another problem: Some parts in the code are assuming that d is cleared (set to zero in start.S). But what start.S does it to clear the new location (z in the picture below).
---------- | d cz| ----------
Because the code (c) still uses the data (bss) in d and not in z, some hard to find errors might occur because the used data isn't set to zero as required.
I have almost no knowledge about how gcc and the binutils are handling relocation, therfore I can't help much further here. What I think is part of the problem, is that -fPIC was removed. Using -pie in LDFLAGS might be used to get relocatable code, but the data will not be relocated. And I would wonder if that is possible without instructing the compiler to build stuff for relocation (-fPIC).
I hope that brings some light into the problem.
Regards,
Alexander