How should anaconda check for PAE? (was Re: arch fun.)

Thorsten Leemhuis fedora at leemhuis.info
Wed Feb 25 13:15:37 UTC 2009


On 25.02.2009 13:27, Chris Lalancette wrote:
> Gerd Hoffmann wrote:
>> We can also simply do this:
>>
>>  - Install PAE kernel if the CPU supports PAE.
>>
>> i.e. make PAE the default kernel.
> 
> Yes, I really think we should just do this.  It's simple, it means we get the
> logic right for Xen as well as bare-metal (without any special cases), and the
> performance hit for those who have PAE and < 4GB isn't that bad, I don't think
> (although numbers one way or the other would be interesting to see).

What about compatibility problems? My old laptop had a PAE capable CPU 
but could not boot a PAE kernel -- I noticed when I was trying a PAE 
kernel for some tests two or three years ago. I asked a kernel-developer 
back then if it was worth reporting and I got told that such problems 
are not unusual and often BIOS or hardware problems. Those likely didn't 
vanish magically is that statement is correct.

BTW, does anyone know when Windows XP SP2/Vista uses it 
PAE-still-limited-to-4gb-kernel to support NX? Maybe we should use a 
similar scheme to avoid running into hardware issues.

CU
knurd




More information about the Fedora-kernel-list mailing list