linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 01/10] Add driver auto probing for x86 features

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Message-ID: <4EEA9E1E.9080308@zytor.com>
Date:	Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:25:50 -0800
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	Jean Delvare <khali@...ux-fr.org>
CC:	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	kay.sievers@...y.org, trenn@...e.de,
	Andi Kleen <ak@...ux.intel.com>, davej@...hat.com,
	axboe@...nel.dk, herbert@...dor.hengli.com.au,
	ying.huang@...el.com, lenb@...nel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 01/10] Add driver auto probing for x86 features

On 12/09/2011 12:16 PM, Jean Delvare wrote:
> 
> Irrelevant. You load a driver when any, not all, of the devices in the
> system are supported by said driver. This obviously holds for PCI
> devices and drivers (you don't refrain from loading the network card's
> driver because that driver doesn't support your graphics card), the CPU
> device case is no different (in theory at least.)
> 

Well, it is, actually.  We do a whole lot of tests using boot_cpu_has(),
which really isn't about the boot CPU at all but rather is the
intersection of all features supported by all the CPUs in the system.

There are, however, a handful of drivers which want to be loaded for
"any matching CPU" as opposed to "all matching CPUs" and I guess it
would be useful to have that capability as an alternative.

	-hpa
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