linux-kernel - Re: x86 setup code rewrite in C

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Date:	Tue, 10 Jul 2007 09:24:52 -0700
From:	Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...p.org>
To:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
CC:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-arch@...r.kernel.org,
	andi@...stfloor.org, akpm@...ux-foundation.org
Subject: Re: x86 setup code rewrite in C

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> This patch set replaces the x86 setup code, which is currently all in
> assembly, with a version written in C, using the ".code16gcc" feature
> of binutils (which has been present since at least 2001.)
>
> The new code is vastly easier to read, and, I hope, debug.  It should
> be noted that I found a fair number of minor bugs while going through
> this code, and have attempted to correct them.
>
> In the process of doing so, it introduces several cleanups, in
> particular:
>
> - Obsoletes the hd_info field in the boot_params structure; they are
>   only ever used for ST-506 (pre-IDE) drives and are pretty much
>   guaranteed to be wrong on current BIOSes;
> - Unifies the CPU feature bits between i386 and x86-64.  In the
>   future, it should be possible to use arch/i386/boot/cpucheck.c to do
>   the post-invocation CPU check currently done in
>   arch/x86_64/kernel/trampoline.S, although this patch set doesn't
>   introduce that change.
> - boot_params is now a proper structure.
>
> This code has been tested in -mm since early in the 2.6.22 cycle.
>   

This stuff is good.  I haven't read through this series in detail, but I 
have been working on the code in -mm and its a clear improvement.

Acked-by: Jeremy Fitzhardinge <jeremy@...source.com>

    J
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