Re: [SOLVED + PATCH] Re: Anybody got 2.4.0 running on a 386 ?

Linus Torvalds
2001-01-15T19:14:01Z

On Mon, 15 Jan 2001, Robert Kaiser wrote:
>
> I finally found the reason why 386es have trouble booting the 2.4.0 kernel:

Good job.

> Pentiums are only lucky to not crash because they have a bigger TLB than 386s.

Actually, with the 4M pages, it's not a question of luck any more - they
just don't _have_ this bug, because on a machine with 4M pages the
"cpu_has_pse" case handles this all and the buggy code is never actually
entered.

Which explains why you'd only see this on a 386 (and I suspect your TLB
size explanation is what saved some i486-class machines, although later
i486 machines will have PSE as well).

Thanks,

Linus