Re: kernel not booting when configured for Athlon

Christopher Friesen (cfriesen@nortelnetworks.com)
Fri, 12 Oct 2001 13:34:40 -0400

steveb@unix.lancs.ac.uk wrote:
>
> I've just replace my Pentium-III system with an Athlon-based one, I rebuilt
> the kernel with 'processor Family' changed from 'Pentium III' to Athlon/Duron/K7, and it failed to boot - it goes as far as "OK, booting the kernel" and hangs.
>
> I can boot a kernel supposedly built for Pentium-III without any apparent problems.

Check the archives. Apparently there is an issue with the highly optimized
Athlon specific memory access/clearing routines that leads to instability on
some motherboards/BIOS revisions.

There is a fix available that seems to clear this up, but it hasn't made it into
the mainstream kernel yet.

The only real difference between Athlon and PIII kernels are some
Athlon-specific optimized assembly-code. The PIII versions still run, just not
quite as fast.

Chris

-- 
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