From owner-freebsd-smp Wed Sep 25 18:18:32 1996 Return-Path: owner-smp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id SAA08001 for smp-outgoing; Wed, 25 Sep 1996 18:18:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from uruk.org (uruk.org [198.145.95.253]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA07967 for ; Wed, 25 Sep 1996 18:18:28 -0700 (PDT) From: erich@uruk.org Received: from loopback (loopback [127.0.0.1]) by uruk.org (8.7.4/8.7.3) with SMTP id SAA17253; Wed, 25 Sep 1996 18:20:05 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199609260120.SAA17253@uruk.org> X-Authentication-Warning: uruk.org: Host loopback [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Chuck Robey cc: Dayton Clark , freebsd-smp@freebsd.org, Steve Price Subject: FreeBSD-SMP and Pentium Pro (was -> Re: QuadPro Motherboard) In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 25 Sep 1996 20:01:39 EDT." Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 18:20:04 -0700 Sender: owner-smp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Chuck Robey writes: > On Wed, 25 Sep 1996 erich@uruk.org wrote: > > > > > Dayton Clark writes: > > > > > We've got an attractive quote on 4CPU systems with QuadPro > > > motherboards which use the Orion chipset. I plan to try Freebsd-SMP > > > on one of them, at least for awhile. > > > > Uhh... as far as I know, no P6 motherboard will work with FreeBSD-SMP. > > Oh, really? I have been tottering on the edge, about ready to buy a new > motherboard exclusively for running FreeBSD-smp, and I was thinking PPro, > because I always upgrade as current as I can. Then PPro smp boards are > out? I'm NOT a kernel hacker, I'm not capable of figuring out and fixing > such bugs myself (altho I'd get the board and run tests forever, if anyone > else wanted to help). I'd even get the board and loan it out for a month > or two, while someone more knowledgeable fixed things. But if it doesn't > run at all, well .... Wow, I didn't think I'd cause this kind of widespread panic ;-) Seriously, though... this isn't a huge show-stopper by any means. There are 2 things necessary to fix working with most P6 systems: -- Changing the local APIC to a variable (right now it is hard-coded), or simply changing the page address it is mapped at to take this into account. -- For many dual-P6 motherboards, support booting off of a CPU local APIC which is != 0. Many P6 motherboards have the boot CPU as #1, and the secondary CPU as #0. This might be harder to fix. BTW, I'll have a finished "generic" startup sequence available in a few days on my web site. It is similar to but somewhat more generic than the Linux-SMP CPU startup code. -- Erich Stefan Boleyn \_ E-mail (preferred): Mad Genius wanna-be, CyberMuffin \__ (finger me for other stats) Web: http://www.uruk.org/~erich/ Motto: "I'll live forever or die trying"