Re: [tlug] Alan Cox's remark at Fosdem

[Uva Coder <uva.coder@example.com>]

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005 00:42:04 -0000 (GMT), ijw@example.com
<ijw@example.com> wrote:
> > That is what the assembler code should handle. In a modern kernel, if
> > it is in C, it should not be tied to any one architecture.
> >
> > -Josh
> 
> That's not really fair.  For instance, x86 architectures have low memory
> and high memory, a 2 level VM tree, small and large pages (sometimes);
> anything written to support these memory structures is going to be x86
> specific.  That doesn't mean that you should be writing it in assembler.

Perhaps I'm missing your point and digressing, but I think that Josh's
statement is a fair statement. The compiler, linker and assembler
should handle the architecture not the code per se. This is where GNU
compilers go wrong by being all things to all architectures. In
comparision see how it was handled by BL:

http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/comp.html
http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/compiler.html 

-uva