Change of /proc/cpuinfo format

Change of /proc/cpuinfo format

[ryan]

Hi,

There was a minor change to the format of /proc/cpuinfo which hoses
several programs.  Most notably is vmware. 

The details are the field formerly known as 'flags' is now known as
'features' which breaks any programs attempting to parse /proc/cpuinfo
and making decisions about what feature set the cpu supports.  

I'm not quite sure why the name change is necessary, and even if one
wants to keep the name change there is a discontunity of cpuinfo formats
and programs which intend to run on kernels 2.2 and 2.4 needs to know
this...

Here is a small patch to save your typing fingers:
--- setup.c.old	Tue Dec  5 15:01:21 2000
+++ setup.c	Tue Dec  5 14:53:52 2000
@@ -2131,7 +2131,7 @@
 			        "fpu_exception\t: %s\n"
 			        "cpuid level\t: %d\n"
 			        "wp\t\t: %s\n"
-			        "features\t:",
+			        "flags\t:",
 			     c->fdiv_bug ? "yes" : "no",
 			     c->hlt_works_ok ? "no" : "yes",
 			     c->f00f_bug ? "yes" : "no",


in linux/arch/i386/kernel

-ryan

--
Ryan Rawson 
Software Designer
ryan@javien.com
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Re: Change of /proc/cpuinfo format

[Peter Samuelson]

> I'm not quite sure why the name change is necessary, and even if one
> wants to keep the name change there is a discontunity of cpuinfo
> formats and programs which intend to run on kernels 2.2 and 2.4 needs
> to know this...

The reason is that HPA, who did the recent IA32 CPU detection cleanup,
felt that the information reported in the new 'features' field was
sufficiently different from that reported in the old 'flags' field that
it was worth renaming -- so that programs wouldn't try to rely on the
old flag names.

(Specifically: some flags were renamed to be distinct between Intel,
AMD, etc, because the exact behavior of the flag may vary between
brands.)

> -			        "features\t:",
> +			        "flags\t:",

This patch is already in test12pre5, and is wrong.  You need two tabs
after 'flags'.

Peter
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