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Date:      Thu, 13 Nov 1997 16:00:54 -0500 (EST)
From:      Alfred Perlstein <perlsta@cs.sunyit.edu>
To:        hackers@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: BSDI F0 bug workaround implementation (help with understanding)
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.971113155923.15617C-100000@server.local.sunyit.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199711131907.MAA28899@usr08.primenet.com>

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I've been following the thread on the Pentium CPU bug, i was wondering how
a workaround is possible?  it just seems very interesting.

-Alfred

On Thu, 13 Nov 1997, Terry Lambert wrote:

> > I'm not sure I understand the full implications of the impact of this
> > hack, although it is worrisome. Judging by what my pentium book says about
> > the layout of the IDT, it seems like it will increase interrupt latency
> > for page faults and many maskable interrupts. Can anyone more
> > knowledgeable than I comment on this? Page fault overhead on freebsd is
> > pretty high: would a short-cut make sense that does not go through the
> > full vm system for this? Otherwise page fault overhead may come close to 
> > doubling ...
> 
> Only the first 7 IDT entries are affected (at least in the Linux
> workaround), not the whole table.
> 
> On the minus side, the impact *is* non-zero.
> 
> Like the FPU bug, since a workaround exists, it's likely to be swept
> under the software as well.  8-(.
> 
> 
> 					Terry Lambert
> 					terry@lambert.org
> ---
> Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
> or previous employers.
> 




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