Re: Pentium DEATH in user-mode
Alan Cox (alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk)
Sat, 8 Nov 1997 23:04:30 +0000 (GMT)
> Page table accesses and interrupt acknowledge cycles will still be
> executed in locked cycles, but the xchgl instruction will *not* generate
> locked cycles anymore.
>
> I don't know if setting the NO_LOCK bit will cause problems when running
> Linux. I don't think so...
I've been through most Linux drivers a lot of times. On most CPU's (ie non PC)
Linux "locked" operations are not bus atomic anyway and things are fine for
the kernel. On devices very few busses propogate "lock" or equivalent
"read-modify-write" cycles to I/O devices, let alone use them.
Perhaps the kernel cyrix patch should handle this automatically.
Alan