Re: 2.4.1-pre1 breaks XFree 4.0.2 and "w"

Andrea Arcangeli
2001-01-12T18:57:17Z

On Fri, Jan 12, 2001 at 10:35:24AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> Andreas argument was that earlier kernels weren't consistent, and as
> such we shouldn't even bother to try to make newer kernels consistent.
> We would be better off reporting our internal inconsistencies the way
> earlier kernels did - the kernel would be confusing, but at least it
> would be consistently confusing ;)

The earlier kernels were 98% consistent in providing the "cpu_has" information
via /proc/cpuinfo that is true information too.

What I am suggesting is to fix the few places to make the /proc/cpuinfo 100%
consistent reporting "cpu_has", and to provide the "can_I_use" information in
another place (for example with /proc/osinfo or a new "osflags" row in
/proc/cpuinfo).

This way we are 100% consistent and we don't lose the "cpu_has" information.

Andrea