[PATCH 0/1] [Jaunty] LP#74179 -- support for i386 machines with >3GB RAM

[Tim Gardner]

Scott James Remnant wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 16:37 +0100, Stefan Bader wrote:
> 
>> Scott James Remnant wrote:
>>> On Tue, 2009-01-27 at 13:51 +0000, Andy Whitcroft wrote:
>>>
>>>> Therefore I am proposing we create a new i386 only flavour generic64g
>>>> which is identicle to the generic flavour except that it enables PAE and
>>>> options that that requires.
>>>>
>>> What are the downsides of just enabling PAE in the generic kernel?
>> The downside is that CPUs without PAE support do not boot. And that are still 
>> some around.
>>
> Which CPUs, specifically?
> 
> Do they not boot, or just not address areas of memory?
> 
> Is there no way for the kernel to detect this like it does with just
> about every other CPU feature and disable it on the fly?
> 
> Scott
> 

There are a whole class of VIA cpus that do not support PAE. They are
popular in some low powered gateways.

rtg
-- 
Tim Gardner tim.gardner at canonical.com