Re: Is it possible to debug an AMD kernel on Intel

On Mon, Nov 26, 2007 at 10:58:09AM -0800, Kip Macy wrote:
> On Nov 26, 2007 10:05 AM, David O'Brien <obrien_at_freebsd.org> wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 25, 2007 at 10:32:13PM -0800, Kip Macy wrote:
> > > Also can we do what the rest of the world does and refer to it as
> > > x86_64 or 64-bit intel? Continuing to refer to it as amd (I know they
> > > came up with instruction set extensions but its now a fundamental part
> > > of the x86 ISA) only serves to confuse new users.
> >
> > NO.  AMD pioneered this platform.  Without them we'd all be unhappily
> > headed towards IA64's.  It is Intel that has constantly chosen to confuse
> > its customers.  This is not a problem for The FreeBSD Project to fix.
> 
> Yes David, we do owe AMD a debt of thanks for accelerating the death
> of ia64. But I have to burst your bubble. They are EXTENSIONS to
> 32-bit Intel not a new ISA.

Kip I'm well aware that AMD64 is an extension to the i386 architecture.
I've seen the RTL and taught the architecture to ISV's for 5 years.

By your logic then why don't we call the i386 platform the 8086 (or 8085)
platform by that logic?  i386 are extensions to the 8086.

> And conservative extensions at that.

I disagree - AMD could have just extended the length of registers vs.
doubling them.  AMD could have not cleaned up an number of i9386 warts
that they did.

 
> I'm not advocating we change the name of the architecture in the tree,
> but we are in a small minority in using AMD instead of x86_64 or
> 64-bit intel.

Which OS calls their offering "64-bit intel"?  The names I've seen are:

X64 - Microsoft (who's own headers still have "AMD64"), and Solaris
      (chose to follow MSFT as the path of least resistance

x86-64 (often spelled x86_64 so its a symbol and not a formula) - This is
what most (but not all) Linux distros use, along with the GNU toolchain.
If AMD's marketing folks had gotten off their asses when asked 10 times
by AMD engineering, these uses would have been "amd64".  Unfortunately by
the time they gave it a name (vs. what engineers referred to it
internally) SuSE SLES 8 was about to ship and there wasn't time to rename
things.

amd64 - used by FreeBSD, Debian, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.

> In the future I'll remember to re-direct all "Can I run
> an amd64 kernel on an Intel processor?" questions to you. And if you
> don't answer promptly I'll give them my opinion on things.

You can do what every you want Kip.  I don't know what you're trying to
prove.

-- 
-- David  (obrien_at_FreeBSD.org)