From: Angus Lees [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
>
>\begin{John Wiltshire}
>> NT4sp3+, Win2000 and Linux all execute a HLT instruction 
>when idle on a
>> single CPU machine.  I'm pretty sure there are issues with 
>SMP machines that
>> means you have to busy idle.
>
>if you have the APM stuff enabled, you also get a "make IDLE calls
>when idle" option. i presume that goes even further than a HLT.

Yes - I checked out the source (arch/i386/kernel/process.c):

Will __asm__("hlt") on UP and SMP machines when idle (lines 98 and 122) and
ACPI idle is not enabled.

If you have APM/ACPI stuff enabled, it calls the BIOS routine to sleep the
CPU until an interrupt is received.

John Wiltshire


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