Linux-kernel mailing list archive 2000-15,: RE: NexGen detection

# RE: NexGen detection

Thomas S. Iversen (zensonic@diku.dk)
Fri, 14 Apr 2000 17:59:40 +0200 (METDST)

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On Fri, 14 Apr 2000, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:

> This is cheating -- a 5th family processor ought to support wp. Some

It's cheating in one sense not in others. The information you see is what
calling CPUID is yielding. I *know* that the processor has a broken WP,
but it also clearly says so :)

> startup code might rely on this fact and may allow a kernel compiled for a
> 486 or a 586 to boot on your machine. You need to be careful when
> preparing any patches -- I'd suggest overriding the family to be "3" for
> "NexGenDriven" CPUs.

You could argue about that, on the other hand you could argue that
algorithms which depends on the family information to test wether WP is
working or not is not behaving nicely. The WP flag is there for a reason.
Well, it's cosmetics anyhow. I just got tired of seeing things like:

Model: ?
Stepping: ?

and so on through out /proc/cpuinfo and would like to remedy this
situation (NexGens are not that easy to come by, so I would step up and do
it if there was interest for it)

Thomas

Thomas S. Iversen
zensonic@diku.dk
Dept. of computer science - copenhagen, denmark.

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