On Wed Jan 9 16:37:17 EST 2013, [email protected] wrote:
> > If it requires PAE, it will not run on Banias and Dothan B-stepping
> > and C-stepping (on 400MHz FSB) CPUs (most Pentium M's).
>
> one question, is the kernel able to print a message if it is started
> on incompatible machine:
>
> panic: this kernel requires PAE which is not supported by this hardware.
>
> Could save a lot of time messing about with the wrong kernel.
no. you're welcome to add the test, but it would have to be
some fiddly assembly before the page tables are set up.
non-pae machines are unlikely to have >4gb of memory.
if unsure, with the 386 kernel, you can do this
; aux/cpuid -f|grep pae
- erik
