Is there any story about the magic number 0x08048000 in "ld" internal linker script ?

[Jason Yan]

Hi,

When I use gdb to trace/debug my program, I notice that the programe linear address always start from 0x8048xxx, then I use "ld --verbose" to display the internal linker script, I find an interesting address 0x08048000 :

SECTIONS
{
  /* Read-only sections, merged into text segment: */
  . = 0x08048000 + SIZEOF_HEADERS
  ......snip....

that's where 0x8048xxx comes from. I'm just curious, why 0x08048000 not other number? Any story?

Thanks,

Jason