[Linux-ia64] cpuinfo family changed in 2.4.7

[Linux-ia64] cpuinfo family changed in 2.4.7

[Donny Cooper]

Hello,

The value of /proc/cpuinfo "family" field has changed in standard IA-64 kernel since 2.4.7.
("IA-64" -> "Itanium" or "McKinley")

Is this field expected any further changes in the future, or are these the final values for this architecture.

Thanks.
-----------------------------------
Donny Cooper
NEC Systems, Inc.
Advanced Technical Computing Center
dcooper@atcc.necsys.com
-----------------------------------

Re: [Linux-ia64] cpuinfo family changed in 2.4.7

[David Mosberger]

>>>>> On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 08:35:01 -0600, "Donny Cooper" <dcooper@atcc.necsys.com> said:

  Donny> Hello, The value of /proc/cpuinfo "family" field has changed
  Donny> in standard IA-64 kernel since 2.4.7.  ("IA-64" -> "Itanium"
  Donny> or "McKinley")

  Donny> Is this field expected any further changes in the future, or
  Donny> are these the final values for this architecture.

"Itanium" is pretty much final.  I'm less certain about McKinley, as
that's just a code name.

	--david

RE: [Linux-ia64] cpuinfo family changed in 2.4.7

[Donny Cooper]

David,

What about the recently added "arch" field for 2.4.7, will it stay consistent in the kernel throughout each chip
generation for Intel 64-bit.

Currently --> arch : IA-64

Thanks.
Donny



-----Original Message-----
From: linux-ia64-admin@linuxia64.org
[mailto:linux-ia64-admin@linuxia64.org]On Behalf Of David Mosberger
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 10:40 AM
To: dcooper@atcc.necsys.com
Cc: !IA64-Dist-Linuxia64 (E-mail)
Subject: Re: [Linux-ia64] cpuinfo family changed in 2.4.7


>>>>> On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 08:35:01 -0600, "Donny Cooper" <dcooper@atcc.necsys.com> said:

  Donny> Hello, The value of /proc/cpuinfo "family" field has changed
  Donny> in standard IA-64 kernel since 2.4.7.  ("IA-64" -> "Itanium"
  Donny> or "McKinley")

  Donny> Is this field expected any further changes in the future, or
  Donny> are these the final values for this architecture.

"Itanium" is pretty much final.  I'm less certain about McKinley, as
that's just a code name.

	--david

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RE: [Linux-ia64] cpuinfo family changed in 2.4.7

[David Mosberger]

>>>>> On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:42:35 -0600, "Donny Cooper" <dcooper@atcc.necsys.com> said:

  Donny> David, What about the recently added "arch" field for 2.4.7,
  Donny> will it stay consistent in the kernel throughout each chip
  Donny> generation for Intel 64-bit.

  Donny> Currently --> arch : IA-64

Yup, it's hardcoded and I am not planing on changing it.

	--david

RE: [Linux-ia64] cpuinfo family changed in 2.4.7

[Dan Pop]

On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, David Mosberger wrote:

> >>>>> On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:42:35 -0600, "Donny Cooper" <dcooper@atcc.necsys.com> said:
> 
>   Donny> David, What about the recently added "arch" field for 2.4.7,
>   Donny> will it stay consistent in the kernel throughout each chip
>   Donny> generation for Intel 64-bit.
> 
>   Donny> Currently --> arch : IA-64
> 
> Yup, it's hardcoded and I am not planing on changing it.

Hasn't Intel officially renamed it IPF?

Dan

Re: [Linux-ia64] cpuinfo family changed in 2.4.7

[Jim Wilson]

>Hasn't Intel officially renamed it IPF?

No.  IA-32 is to Pentium as IA-64 is to Itanium.  The first one is the
architecture name, the second one is Intel's proprietary implementation of
that architecture.

Intel marketing will tell you that only the terms Pentium and Itanium (IPF)
are acceptable, but you have to consider the source.  Intel doesn't make
money when someone buys a generic IA-32 chip, like the AMD Athlon.  They
only make money if someone buys an Intel branded chip like the Pentium.
So Intel wants you to use the term Pentium always, so that more people will
be encouraged to buy Pentiums.  Likewise for Itanium.

GNU/Linux however supports all IA-32 chips, whether Intel makes them or not,
so we want to use generic architecture names like x86 and IA-32 instead of
Pentium.  Likewise, we will support all IA-64 chips, whether Intel makes them
or not, so IA-64 is preferable to Itanium and IPF when talking about the
architecture.

Jim

RE: [Linux-ia64] cpuinfo family changed in 2.4.7

[David Mosberger]

>>>>> On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 23:03:06 +0100 (MET), Dan Pop <Dan.Pop@cern.ch> said:

  Dan> On Tue, 6 Nov 2001, David Mosberger wrote:

  >> >>>>> On Tue, 6 Nov 2001 14:42:35 -0600, "Donny Cooper"
  >> <dcooper@atcc.necsys.com> said:
  >> 
  Donny> David, What about the recently added "arch" field for 2.4.7,
  Donny> will it stay consistent in the kernel throughout each chip
  Donny> generation for Intel 64-bit.
  >>
  Donny> Currently --> arch : IA-64
  >>  Yup, it's hardcoded and I am not planing on changing it.

  Dan> Hasn't Intel officially renamed it IPF?

The official line from HP is that the architecture has been renamed to
"Itanium Processor Family" or "IPF" in short (I believe that's also
Intel's line, but I won't pretend to speak for Intel).

I'm not planning on changing from IA-64 to IPF for a very pragmatic
reason: there is just too much software out there that is testing for
ia64 already (if we changed the "arch" field, we presumably would have
to change the output of "uname -m" and so on...).

I also agree with Jim's sentiment that we need to emphasize that Linux
(and everything that goes on top of it) is designed for the
*architecture* not for a particular CPU model.  The terms "IA-64" and
"Itanium" make this distinction clear.  In contrast, "IPF" and
"Itanium" muddle the two.

	--david

PS: I do have to admit though that if I ever have to give a talk on
    IA-64 in German, I'll certainly be using IPF instead.  No interest
    in sounding like a donkey! ;-)