Messages in this thread | | | Date | 8 Jan 99 15:31:36 EST | From | Chuck Lever <> | Subject | Re: CPU options during config |
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alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk wrote: > Unknown instructions raise illegal instruction. There are also a set > of "official" ways to check chips. The problem is the run time cost > of testing often outweights the time saved. Thats why Linus stuff on > the "with TSC" compile makes a lot of sense.
i see where you are coming from. however, i sense that there's a trade-off between high performance, and how complicated is system configuration, especially for someone who doesn't have time to do research on the capability of his/her processor. i don't even see that everyone here is in agreement about whether the K6 should be considered a pentium+ or a pentium-pro, for the sake of selecting a kernel configuration *and* compiler optimizations for the kernel build. choosing compiler optimization and kernel configuration may not even be the same issue, as Helge Hafting points out.
someone else recently suggested running a program before the configuration menu starts to set up reasonable default configuration settings based on the processor type, and that might be an excellent compromise between maintaining high-performance and kernel simplicity, and ease of configuration.
by the way, i have tried compiling a kernel with gcc 2.8.1 and -march=pentiumpro, on a K6. it hangs very soon after it boots. recompiling with -march=pentium fixes the problem. i'm not sure if this falls under "compiler weirdness," or whether it just means the K6 kernels should be built with I686 and -march=pentium. anyway, i thought i should report this here, sample size 1.
-- Chuck
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