On Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:47:04 -0700 (PDT)
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:

quoted text
> 
> 
> On Sun, 31 Aug 2008, David Sanders wrote:
> >
> > I recently discovered that x86 kernels won't boot under Virtual PC.
> 
> What CPU does Virtual PC emulate? As far as Wikipedia is concerned
> (not that I'd take it on complete faith) it emulates a 32-bit Intel
> Pentium II.
> 
> And that commit makes the kernel use the "P6 nops" for such hardware. 
> Maybe Virtual PC doesn't support the newer intel nop things?
> 
> Intel docs say that it should be available on any intel CPU that has 
> CPUID.01H.EAX[11:8] = 0110B or 1111B. That's the "family ID", and
> Pentium II should have a family ID of 6 (ie that 0110B case).
> 
> So it sounds like a Virtual PC bug, but I dunno. And maybe we should
> just use the legcay nops for anything that isn't modern (ie P4+ or
> Core)?

it's probably even a security bug in that I don't see what would be
stopping a ring 3 user process from executing these instructions...

--
unsubscribe notice
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/