From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1753356Ab0IEPlO (ORCPT ); Sun, 5 Sep 2010 11:41:14 -0400 Received: from tx2ehsobe004.messaging.microsoft.com ([65.55.88.14]:18695 "EHLO TX2EHSOBE008.bigfish.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752430Ab0IEPlN (ORCPT ); Sun, 5 Sep 2010 11:41:13 -0400 X-SpamScore: -22 X-BigFish: VPS-22(zzbb2dK1432N98dN9371Pzz1202hzzz32i2a8h43h61h) X-Spam-TCS-SCL: 0:0 X-WSS-ID: 0L8A60R-02-53X-02 X-M-MSG: Message-ID: <4C83B939.60005@amd.com> Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2010 17:37:29 +0200 From: Andre Przywara User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.18 (X11/20081105) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Avi Kivity CC: "kvm@vger.kernel.org" , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4] x86: Fix misnamed AMD CPUID feature bit References: <1283506069-1096-1-git-send-email-andre.przywara@amd.com> <1283506069-1096-2-git-send-email-andre.przywara@amd.com> <4C834FCA.4020207@redhat.com> In-Reply-To: <4C834FCA.4020207@redhat.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Reverse-DNS: unknown Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Avi Kivity wrote: > On 09/03/2010 12:27 PM, Andre Przywara wrote: >> The AMD SSE5 feature set as-it has been replaced by some extensions >> to the AVX instruction set. Thus the bit formerly advertised as SSE5 >> is re-used for one of these extensions (XOP). >> Although this changes the /proc/cpuinfo output, it is not user visible, as >> there are no CPUs (yet) having this feature. >> To avoid confusion this should be added to the stable series, too. >> >> >> >> diff --git a/arch/x86/include/asm/cpufeature.h b/arch/x86/include/asm/cpufeature.h >> index 781a50b..c9c73d8 100644 >> --- a/arch/x86/include/asm/cpufeature.h >> +++ b/arch/x86/include/asm/cpufeature.h >> @@ -152,7 +152,7 @@ >> #define X86_FEATURE_3DNOWPREFETCH (6*32+ 8) /* 3DNow prefetch instructions */ >> #define X86_FEATURE_OSVW (6*32+ 9) /* OS Visible Workaround */ >> #define X86_FEATURE_IBS (6*32+10) /* Instruction Based Sampling */ >> -#define X86_FEATURE_SSE5 (6*32+11) /* SSE-5 */ >> +#define X86_FEATURE_XOP (6*32+11) /* extended AVX instructions */ >> #define X86_FEATURE_SKINIT (6*32+12) /* SKINIT/STGI instructions */ >> #define X86_FEATURE_WDT (6*32+13) /* Watchdog timer */ >> #define X86_FEATURE_NODEID_MSR (6*32+19) /* NodeId MSR */ > > Even with the -stable update, there may be distributions which have > kernels with the old name. That means userspace would need to look for > both names if it wants to be sure. CPUs having XOP will not be available before next year, and since XOP is using the same register set as AVX, it cannot be used without proper XSAVE/XRESTORE support. I am not sure when exactly XSAVE was introduced in the kernel, but I think this limits the usability of older kernels for XOP. I see that there is a faint possibility of causing trouble, but I don't see any real alternative. Regards, Andre. -- Andre Przywara AMD-Operating System Research Center (OSRC), Dresden, Germany