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SubjectRe: [patch] Katmai/PIII support for Linux pre-2.2.2-1

On Wed, 3 Feb 1999, Philipp Rumpf wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 03, 1999 at 07:11:11PM +0100, MOLNAR Ingo wrote:
> > nor do we want to do boot-time dynamic linking.
>
> I think it would be better to do this. It would allow for a common
> kernel that runs on all of Intel CPUs without opening a potential
> security hole or having a serious performance impact, as not using the
> KNIs at all would have.

no Philipp, this is one of the reasons why i didnt use the approach in
your patch. It's just so ugly to do boot-time linking that way. Also
please take a look at my patch, it pretty much shows that are lots of
other things to be taken care of, not only context switching. (ptrace,
signals, ELF compatibility) I dont think dynamic usage is achievable in a
sane way, and i dont think it's desirable.

we _have_ a common kernel, which is called CONFIG_M386. PII kernels
already do not run on 'lesser' hardware. Take a look at the check_config()
function how we do this. This (recent) change has made lots of things much
more maintainable, especially in the SMP/APIC area. It makes tons of
sense.

(if the PIII introduces a security hole on nonsupportive kernels then it's
a PIII problem. Btw, i pretty much doubt this to be the case, if Intel is
sane they have linked all the new MMX2 opcodes to the 'Katmai mode'. They
would otherwise cut off some huge installed based potentially upgrading to
a PIII.)

-- mingo


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