Re: [PATCH] x86: set Pentium M as PAE capable

From: Peter Hurley
Date: Tue Feb 25 2014 - 07:07:07 EST


On 02/25/2014 05:45 AM, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
On 02/24/2014 10:01 PM, Chris Bainbridge wrote:
Pentium M is PAE capable but does not indicate so in the CPUID response.
This is an issue now that some distributions are no longer shipping
non-PAE kernels (those distributions no longer boot on Pentium M). This
small patch fixes the issue by forcing the PAE capability on Pentium M.

For more discussion see https://bugs.launchpad.net/baltix/+bug/930447


1. This patch doesn't match the discussion in the link.
2. You would have to also enable this in the cpu testing code in
arch/x86/boot.
3. At the very least we need to print a serious warning that the CPU
is being run outside its specifications. I have no personal
information about why this CPUID bit was disabled, but it could be
that it was discovered in testing that it didn't work correctly in
all circumstances (e.g. high temperature.) This is very much "use
at your own risk..."; you could get data corruption or even
hardware damage.

We should probably also taint the kernel.

Perhaps obviously, this should require either command line or build opt-in.

Regards,
Peter Hurley

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