On 8/1/07, Zoltan Menyhart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > You do have model specific I cache semantics. > Not taking it into account will oblige you to flush in vain for the models > which do not require it. Why do you want to take this option?
Given unlimited resources, your proposal makes perfect sense. We could have a Linux version for Merced, one for McKinley, one for Madison, etc., etc. (Un)fortunately, resources are limited and with that constraint in place, rather than spending lots of time optimizing the kernel for particular idiosyncrasies of a CPU model, it is generally much better to optimize it for the things the hardware designers promised us would stay the same across CPU models (i.e., the "architecture"). Sure, it may mean that on occasion certain things are slightly slower than they could be but it does have the decided advantage of letting the maintainers sleep at night... ;-) Moreover, higher-level optimizations usually have much higher payoff, so even though you may do things a bit more slowly at the lowest level, you may end up with a faster system overall because you were able to spend more time optimizing at a higher level. --david - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
