diff --git a/Kconfig b/Kconfig
index a5bfaf7d3a..abaaa8c5fe 100644
--- a/Kconfig
+++ b/Kconfig
@@ -53,6 +53,25 @@ config LOCALVERSION
 	help
 	  Append an extra string to the end of the LinuxBIOS version.
 
+config NOELF
+	bool "Don't use ELF for payloads"
+	depends EXPERT
+	default n
+	help
+	  Until now, LinuxBIOS has used elf for the payload. There are many problems 
+	  this, not least being the inefficiency -- the ELF has to be decompressed to
+	  memory and then the segments have to be copied. Plus, lar can't see the segments 
+	  in the elf -- to see all segments, you have to extract the elf and run readelf on it.
+	  There are problems with collisions of the decompressed ELF location in memory
+	  and the segment locations in memory. 
+	  Finally, validation of the ELF is done at run time, once you have flashed the 
+	  FLASH and rebooted the machine. Boot time is really not the time you want to find 
+	  out your ELF payload is broken. 
+	  With this option, LinuxBIOS will direct lar to break each elf segment into a LAR 
+	  entry. ELF will not be used at all. Note that (for now) LinuxBIOS is backward
+	  compatible -- if you put an ELF payload in, LinuxBIOS can still parse it. We hope
+	  to remove ELF entirely in the future. 
+
 config BEEPS
 	bool "Enable beeps upon certain LinuxBIOS events"
 	depends EXPERT
diff --git a/include/lar.h b/include/lar.h
index 4601a49629..2f9fd8f181 100644
--- a/include/lar.h
+++ b/include/lar.h
@@ -52,9 +52,10 @@
 
 #include <types.h>
 
+/* see note in lib/lar.c as to why this is ARCHIVE and not LARCHIVE */
 #define MAGIC "LARCHIVE"
 #define MAX_PATHLEN 1024
-
+/* NOTE -- This and the user-mode lar.h are NOT IN SYNC. Be careful. */
 struct lar_header {
 	char magic[8];
 	u32 len;
@@ -62,7 +63,14 @@ struct lar_header {
 	u32 checksum;
 	u32 compchecksum;
 	u32 offset;
+	/* Compression:
+	 * 0 = no compression
+	 * 1 = lzma
+	 * 2 = nrv2b
+	 */
 	u32 compression;
+	u32 entry;		/* we might need to make this u64 */
+	u32 loadaddress; /* ditto */
 };
 
 struct mem_file {
@@ -70,6 +78,8 @@ struct mem_file {
 	int len;
 	u32 reallen;
 	u32 compression;
+	void *entry;
+	void *loadaddress;
 };
 
 /* Prototypes. */
@@ -77,5 +87,6 @@ int find_file(struct mem_file *archive, char *filename, struct mem_file *result)
 int copy_file(struct mem_file *archive, char *filename, void *where);
 int run_file(struct mem_file *archive, char *filename, void *where);
 int execute_in_place(struct mem_file *archive, char *filename);
-
+int run_address(void *f);
+void *load_file(struct mem_file *archive, char *filename);
 #endif /* LAR_H */