Re: Kernel cpu selection + other platforms?

Teunis Peters (teunis@usa.net)
Tue, 22 Jul 1997 22:41:16 -0600 (MDT)


On 22 Jul 1997, david parsons wrote:

> In article <linux.kernel.33D3BDE2.404EB0D1@netzblick.com>,
> Roland Steinbach <roland@netzblick.de> wrote:
> >Mike Jagdis wrote:
> >
> >> Why? It is pretty easy to recognise all x86 varieties (other than the
> >> early 486 clones) at run time and simply Do The Right Thing without
> >> asking the user daft questions about whether they have microcode
> >> bug #564 or working frozzle optimizations.
> >
> >_I_ don't want my settings be controlled by an OS,
>
> Whyever not? Resource management is, after all, why you've got an OS
> in the first place.

CPU settings that drastically change how the OS acts don't count as
resources....

Not unless the CPU can be readjusted without affecting running code.
[as an example : try changing page-sizing on the fly... say to 8K pages
from 4K pages....]

Ciao!
- Teunis

SOME things should be compile-level. And a CPU that allows resizing of
page-memory should have its own settings... And either fix it at boot
(faster - more constants) or REALLY watch the memory-manager...

I don't know if any CPU actually DOES this (but 6x86 does something
similar AFAIK)

oh, and before I forget - sometimes it's nice to tell if there's a CPU bug
by disabling it's optimizations.... and you can't do that in an OS that
automagically enables everything... (Hi Microsloth!)