linux-kernel - Re: Is 386 processor still supported?

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Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.1.10.0901130047160.10547@ftp.linux-mips.org>
Date:	Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:06:55 +0000 (GMT)
From:	"Maciej W. Rozycki" <macro@...ux-mips.org>
To:	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>
cc:	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Jiri Kosina <jkosina@...e.cz>, Adam Osuchowski <adwol@...k.pl>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Nick Piggin <npiggin@...e.de>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Subject: Re: Is 386 processor still supported?

On Thu, 8 Jan 2009, Ingo Molnar wrote:

> > So our minimal spec for SMP is probably 486DX + external Intel APIC.
> > 
> > In practice I doubt there is a single Intel APIC type 486 SMP box on the 
> > planet running Linux (or quite possibly running at all)
> 
> yeah, that's very likely true. I think we could eliminate some of the SMP 
> complications by requiring cmpxchg presence for CONFIG_SMP, agreed?

 I failed to track down a single 486 SMP system that would adhere to the 
MP spec.  There were and possibly still are APIC-based 486 SMP systems out 
there, but most likely they are not Intel MPS-compliant, by not providing 
the MP header at the very least.  Thus Linux would have to be ported and I 
gather the interest in doing so is epsilon.

 Myself, I could not resist trying an APIC-based 486 SMP box and possibly 
fixing issues if I found one and it was MPS-compliant, but nothing beyond 
that I would say.  Life's too short.

  Maciej
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