> > we have to choose the i486 feature set as the least common denominator > > (ie no MMX, etc). > > I'm not quite sure that is a bad thing actually.
Its a very bad thing for large numbers of applications. However for x86 it isnt the case that we need to look at /proc. If you follow the AMD and Intel guidelines for identifying their processors you will be fine, and cpuid is user space. The minimal feature set btw is 386. The 486 adds instructions like BSWAP that may not be present on some other chips right up to the nexgen 586. This is not always the case for non x86 platforms, but that is a matter for the architecture specific LSB parts. Alan
