On Wednesday 18 July 2007 18:49:00 Alex Schuster wrote: > > What I want to know is, will my software, compiled with the above > > settings, run in the new processor? > > I think this will not work well, because your current system has > Athlon-specific CPU instructions which the Intel machine dows not know > of. You probably get "illegal instruction" errors with many binaries. I > even had this when I replaced my athlon-something with a just slightly > less powerful Sempron CPU.
Actually, I'd not be surprised if everything, or at worst a large percentage of everything, works properly. I make large use of binary packages on the production servers I run, and I recently encountered something "interesting". Everything was built CHOST=i686-pc-linux-gnu, CFLAGS=--march=opteron, correctly on a dual Opteron. Those packages were then used to build an install on a pair of old dual P4 Xeon boxes (not the current Core Xeons), and everything worked fine (and continues to work fine). It wasn't until I came to use those packages on a P3, where there were loads of "illegal instructions", which very nearly forced me to drive 45 miles to go fix it locally. All of these are headless servers though, so naturally have no X or any "desktop" software. However, you're going the opposite way, an "old" instruction set, to a "new" one. Basically, don't jump in to reinstalling, or rebuilding. Try it first, you might be pleasently surprised. -- Mike Williams -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
