From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751216AbXCRXLt (ORCPT ); Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:11:49 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S933388AbXCRXLt (ORCPT ); Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:11:49 -0400 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.24]:58668 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751722AbXCRXLs (ORCPT ); Sun, 18 Mar 2007 19:11:48 -0400 Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 16:10:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Andi Kleen cc: Christoph Lameter , Steven Rostedt , Martin Bligh , Ingo Molnar , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , Chris Wright , Rusty Russell , Glauber de Oliveira Costa Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/18] Make common x86 arch area for i386 and x86_64 - Take 2 In-Reply-To: <20070316114415.GA26403@one.firstfloor.org> Message-ID: References: <20070314050819.536207642@goodmis.org> <20070314125330.GA13168@elte.hu> <45F96B57.10206@mbligh.org> <20070315160648.GA11812@one.firstfloor.org> <1173977264.7922.24.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20070316114415.GA26403@one.firstfloor.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Fri, 16 Mar 2007, Andi Kleen wrote: > > In the future it is likely that x86_64 will significantly deviate from > > It already is in some cases. And I agree more will happen. This is a *totally* bogus and idiotic argument. x86-64 will get new capabilities, BUT IT WILL CONTINUE TO SUPPORT OLD x86-64 machines. And those machines are basically identical to perfectly regular i386 platforms. So the whole argument that it would "diverge" is total crap. It obviously won't diverge, simply because the support for old setups is needed on x86-64 *regardless* of whether 32-bit support exists on the same platform or not. There's a huge difference between divergence and "more capabilities". Linus