Re: Processor requirements

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

Since I started this thread, let me try to wrap it up with a resolution:

1. Coyotos will not support i386. The fact that the processor does not
honor the PTE write-protect bit is a problem. The issue is restricted to
the IPC fast path, a solution can be back-ported if anybody cares to do
so later.

2. There is some argument for i486 support. Given that several of the
embedded processors are i486-derived, this is sensible, but I really do
not want to tie the mainstream implementation to these processors.
Similarly for Pentium-I.

3. Coyotos is targeting various embedded environments, so our "target
triple" for kernel builds needs to include a target board in any case.
Given this, what I think we should do is divide things according to the
target motherboard:

   pc-isa:      i486, ISA bus, no PCI support
   pc-pci:      Pentium or later
   pc           i686 or later

I currently have no way to debug ISA-only targets. Believe it or not, I
*do* have a legacy Pentium machine around somewhere.

If anybody decides they care, they can back-port the 386 support to the
pc-isa platform.

Most of this can be done with common code.

shap