Re: [PATCH] x86/boot: Fail the boot if !M486 and CPUID is missing

[Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>]

On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 5:18 AM, One Thousand Gnomes
<gnomes@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote:
>> Rather than trying to work around these issues, just have the kernel
>> fail loudly if it's running on a CPUID-less 486, doesn't have CPUID,
>> and doesn't have CONFIG_M486 set.
>
> NAK
>
> This still breaks the Geode at the very least and I think the ELAN and
> some of the other older socket 7 devices. These have their own config CPU
> type (and in some cases *need* it selected) but do not have CPUID.
>
> Given the cores without CPUID are often post 486 in other respects this
> seems a bit odd. In fact I can't help thinking that the problem is that
> sync_core tests CONFIG_M486 whereas we should have and test
>
> HAVE_CPUID
>
> and set this by processor type (M586/M486/GEODEGX1/GEODE_LX1/Cyrix plus I
> think ELAN not having it)
>
> I'd been wondering why Geode wasn't working on modern kernels, now I
> think I know 8)
>

Ick.  Am I understanding correctly that this isn't a regression per se
since the affected machines were already broken?  If so, let's fix it
for real rather than just reverting this patch.

--Andy