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Running pae kernel on non-pae system
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Deb...@paulscrap.com
Feb 23, 2013, 1:40:02 PM2/23/13
to
Hi Folks,
Last night I updated an older laptop of mine from Squeeze to Wheezy.
It went fine, but I did run into an odd particularity.
This system (Dell D505) has a Pentium M processor. My understanding is
that the Pentium M's are just about the only modern(ish) processor
without pae, and thus kernels with pae compiled in can't run on it. (pae
doesn't show up in the cpu flags)
During the upgrade I did get warnings about it not supporting pae, so I
did make sure to install the 486 image, but forgot to remove the 686-pae
(removed 686, though). That's not a big deal, though. It just means
I'd have to select the 486 kernel to boot up and fix it, right?
I wasn't paying attention during reboot, and it went to 686-pae by
default. Imagine my surprise when it started up with no problems. It's
still running on that kernel!
Any ideas? Was my understanding about pae wrong? Can the recent Debian
kernels disable pae on their own (something I didn't think was
possible)? Do I have a magical Pentium M?
Some info from the system below:
$ uname -a
Linux MIT-D505-L 3.2.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.2.35-2 i686 GNU/Linux
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 13
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.60GHz
stepping : 6
microcode : 0x18
cpu MHz : 600.000
cache size : 2048 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov clflush
dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe up bts est tm2
bogomips : 1198.81
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:
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Last night I updated an older laptop of mine from Squeeze to Wheezy.
It went fine, but I did run into an odd particularity.
This system (Dell D505) has a Pentium M processor. My understanding is
that the Pentium M's are just about the only modern(ish) processor
without pae, and thus kernels with pae compiled in can't run on it. (pae
doesn't show up in the cpu flags)
During the upgrade I did get warnings about it not supporting pae, so I
did make sure to install the 486 image, but forgot to remove the 686-pae
(removed 686, though). That's not a big deal, though. It just means
I'd have to select the 486 kernel to boot up and fix it, right?
I wasn't paying attention during reboot, and it went to 686-pae by
default. Imagine my surprise when it started up with no problems. It's
still running on that kernel!
Any ideas? Was my understanding about pae wrong? Can the recent Debian
kernels disable pae on their own (something I didn't think was
possible)? Do I have a magical Pentium M?
Some info from the system below:
$ uname -a
Linux MIT-D505-L 3.2.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.2.35-2 i686 GNU/Linux
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 13
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.60GHz
stepping : 6
microcode : 0x18
cpu MHz : 600.000
cache size : 2048 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov clflush
dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss tm pbe up bts est tm2
bogomips : 1198.81
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:
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Dom
Feb 23, 2013, 2:20:02 PM2/23/13
to
it will be ignored and run normally. Only some "really old" CPUs (like
some others I do run) won't be supported.
My laptop shows:
dom@oz:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 9
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1600MHz
stepping : 5
microcode : 0x7
cpu MHz : 600.000
cache size : 1024 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov clflush
dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 tm pbe up bts est tm2
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov clflush
bogomips : 1196.90
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:
and an even older laptop gives:
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:
dom@rodney:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 8
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model name : Celeron (Coppermine)
stepping : 1
microcode : 0xf
cpu MHz : 498.435
cache size : 128 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov pse36
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
mmx fxsr sse up
bogomips : 996.87
clflush size : 32
cache_alignment : 32
address sizes : 36 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
power management:
Both running the 3.2.0-4-686-pae kernel
power management:
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Dom
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Deb...@paulscrap.com
Feb 23, 2013, 2:50:01 PM2/23/13
to
On 02/23/2013 02:15 PM, Dom wrote:
> On 23/02/13 18:36, Deb...@paulscrap.com wrote:
>
> I think the pae bit will only be used by CPUs that support it, otherwise
> it will be ignored and run normally. Only some "really old" CPUs (like
> some others I do run) won't be supported.
>
See, that's interesting. Everything else I've read says the kernel
> On 23/02/13 18:36, Deb...@paulscrap.com wrote:
>
> I think the pae bit will only be used by CPUs that support it, otherwise
> it will be ignored and run normally. Only some "really old" CPUs (like
> some others I do run) won't be supported.
>
won't boot. In fact Ubuntu and derivative users have been experiencing
issues related to that for awhile as they dropped support for non-pae
kernels since 12.04. (I was running Lubuntu 12.10 on this laptop
previously, but the kernel was stuck to what was in Lubuntu 11.10.) On
boot non-pae systems get "This kernel requires the following features
not present on the CPU: pae Unable to boot - please use a kernel
appropriate for your CPU.".
Funnily enough, merely 20 minutes after I posted here, someone posted a
reply on Ubuntu-users to someone else's issue about Lubuntu's 12.10
generic kernel not booting.
The replier says a pae kernel can boot and run fine on a non-pae cpu if
the cpu *reports* it can do pae. There's apparently a tool (fake-pae)
that puts the string "pae" in /proc/cpuinfo.
I know I'm not running fake-pae, yet it still boots, so I'm wondering if
Debian has done something to the kernels to not check the cpu flags? I
note Dom's Pentium M system doesn't have pae in flags either (Though his
Celeron does, which it should anyway.).
> My laptop shows:
>
> model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1600MHz
> model name : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1600MHz
> flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov
> clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 tm pbe up bts est tm2
>
> clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 tm pbe up bts est tm2
>
> and an even older laptop gives:
>
> model name : Celeron (Coppermine)
>
> flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 sep mtrr pge mca cmov
> pse36 mmx fxsr sse up
>
> pse36 mmx fxsr sse up
>
> Both running the 3.2.0-4-686-pae kernel
>
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>
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David Baron
Feb 24, 2013, 2:50:01 AM2/24/13
to
As previously posted, I am definitely running a PAE kernel on a system which does not benefit from it. Boots no problem.
The CPU probably does support it. The BIOS, however, does not.
Tixy
Feb 24, 2013, 8:10:01 AM2/24/13
to
On Sat, 2013-02-23 at 13:36 -0500, Deb...@paulscrap.com wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> Last night I updated an older laptop of mine from Squeeze to Wheezy.
> It went fine, but I did run into an odd particularity.
>
> This system (Dell D505) has a Pentium M processor. My understanding is
> that the Pentium M's are just about the only modern(ish) processor
> without pae, and thus kernels with pae compiled in can't run on it. (pae
> doesn't show up in the cpu flags)
>
> During the upgrade I did get warnings about it not supporting pae, so I
> did make sure to install the 486 image, but forgot to remove the 686-pae
> (removed 686, though). That's not a big deal, though. It just means
> I'd have to select the 486 kernel to boot up and fix it, right?
>
> I wasn't paying attention during reboot, and it went to 686-pae by
> default. Imagine my surprise when it started up with no problems. It's
> still running on that kernel!
A couple of weeks ago I installed Wheezy on a Pentium M machine and had
> Hi Folks,
>
> Last night I updated an older laptop of mine from Squeeze to Wheezy.
> It went fine, but I did run into an odd particularity.
>
> This system (Dell D505) has a Pentium M processor. My understanding is
> that the Pentium M's are just about the only modern(ish) processor
> without pae, and thus kernels with pae compiled in can't run on it. (pae
> doesn't show up in the cpu flags)
>
> During the upgrade I did get warnings about it not supporting pae, so I
> did make sure to install the 486 image, but forgot to remove the 686-pae
> (removed 686, though). That's not a big deal, though. It just means
> I'd have to select the 486 kernel to boot up and fix it, right?
>
> I wasn't paying attention during reboot, and it went to 686-pae by
> default. Imagine my surprise when it started up with no problems. It's
> still running on that kernel!
a similar experience choosing a kernel version. I ended up trying
686-pae because there wasn't a plain 686 like in in Squeeze and found it
worked, even though though my CPU didn't have PAE.
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Tixy
Feb 24, 2013, 8:40:01 AM2/24/13
to
PAE, and if Wikipedia is to be believed [1] a lot of the the later
Pentium Ms did.
One of my old Laptops has a Pentium M 730 [1] which confusingly has PAE
but only 32-bit physical address size.
[1] http://ark.intel.com/products/27586
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Tixy
Feb 24, 2013, 8:50:02 AM2/24/13
to
On Sun, 2013-02-24 at 13:00 +0000, Tixy wrote:
> On Sat, 2013-02-23 at 13:36 -0500, Deb...@paulscrap.com wrote:
> > Hi Folks,
> >
> > Last night I updated an older laptop of mine from Squeeze to Wheezy.
> > It went fine, but I did run into an odd particularity.
> >
> > This system (Dell D505) has a Pentium M processor. My understanding is
> > that the Pentium M's are just about the only modern(ish) processor
> > without pae, and thus kernels with pae compiled in can't run on it. (pae
> > doesn't show up in the cpu flags)
> >
> > During the upgrade I did get warnings about it not supporting pae, so I
> > did make sure to install the 486 image, but forgot to remove the 686-pae
> > (removed 686, though). That's not a big deal, though. It just means
> > I'd have to select the 486 kernel to boot up and fix it, right?
> >
> > I wasn't paying attention during reboot, and it went to 686-pae by
> > default. Imagine my surprise when it started up with no problems. It's
> > still running on that kernel!
>
> A couple of weeks ago I installed Wheezy on a Pentium M machine and had
> a similar experience choosing a kernel version. I ended up trying
> 686-pae because there wasn't a plain 686 like in in Squeeze and found it
> worked, even though though my CPU didn't have PAE.
Actually, I just double checked, and my CPU [1] does have PAE after all.
> On Sat, 2013-02-23 at 13:36 -0500, Deb...@paulscrap.com wrote:
> > Hi Folks,
> >
> > Last night I updated an older laptop of mine from Squeeze to Wheezy.
> > It went fine, but I did run into an odd particularity.
> >
> > This system (Dell D505) has a Pentium M processor. My understanding is
> > that the Pentium M's are just about the only modern(ish) processor
> > without pae, and thus kernels with pae compiled in can't run on it. (pae
> > doesn't show up in the cpu flags)
> >
> > During the upgrade I did get warnings about it not supporting pae, so I
> > did make sure to install the 486 image, but forgot to remove the 686-pae
> > (removed 686, though). That's not a big deal, though. It just means
> > I'd have to select the 486 kernel to boot up and fix it, right?
> >
> > I wasn't paying attention during reboot, and it went to 686-pae by
> > default. Imagine my surprise when it started up with no problems. It's
> > still running on that kernel!
>
> A couple of weeks ago I installed Wheezy on a Pentium M machine and had
> a similar experience choosing a kernel version. I ended up trying
> 686-pae because there wasn't a plain 686 like in in Squeeze and found it
> worked, even though though my CPU didn't have PAE.
I was confused because it only has 32-bit physical address size (and so
doesn't benefit from any 'Extension' to the physical address).
[1] http://ark.intel.com/products/27586
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Henrique de Moraes Holschuh
Feb 25, 2013, 6:40:02 PM2/25/13
to
On Sun, 24 Feb 2013, Tixy wrote:
> Actually, I just double checked, and my CPU [1] does have PAE after all.
> I was confused because it only has 32-bit physical address size (and so
> doesn't benefit from any 'Extension' to the physical address).
The Pentium-M does indeed have PAE, and they even have PAT support as well.
> Actually, I just double checked, and my CPU [1] does have PAE after all.
> I was confused because it only has 32-bit physical address size (and so
> doesn't benefit from any 'Extension' to the physical address).
Unfortunately, PAT support on the Pentium-M is blacklisted, pending someone
going over all the related errata, and actually checking whether all
Pentium-M have PAT-related errata or not (bad page type aliasing between PAT
and MTRR MSRs is a no-no for Linux).
But it will run PAE kernels just fine.
--
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them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
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Stan Hoeppner
Feb 25, 2013, 11:30:01 PM2/25/13
to
On 2/24/2013 7:41 AM, Tixy wrote:
> Actually, I just double checked, and my CPU [1] does have PAE after all.
PAE is in every AMD/Intel chip manufactured post 1998. You'd have to be
> Actually, I just double checked, and my CPU [1] does have PAE after all.
using a Pentium MMX, AMD K6-2, or older chip, to lack PAE support.
The general rule here: if the chip clock is greater than 550 MHz it has
PAE, PSE, PSE-36, or all three, and you're golden. Few people are using
chips this old, thus this question actually should never pop up.
Curious that it does, given you can find this information so easily with
Google.
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Tixy
Feb 26, 2013, 4:10:01 AM2/26/13
to
On Mon, 2013-02-25 at 22:26 -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> On 2/24/2013 7:41 AM, Tixy wrote:
>
> > Actually, I just double checked, and my CPU [1] does have PAE after all.
>
> PAE is in every AMD/Intel chip manufactured post 1998. You'd have to be
> using a Pentium MMX, AMD K6-2, or older chip, to lack PAE support.
>
> The general rule here: if the chip clock is greater than 550 MHz it has
> PAE, PSE, PSE-36, or all three, and you're golden. Few people are using
> chips this old, thus this question actually should never pop up.
> Curious that it does, given you can find this information so easily with
> Google.
Unfortunately, the top hits for me when searching for "pentium m pae" in
> On 2/24/2013 7:41 AM, Tixy wrote:
>
> > Actually, I just double checked, and my CPU [1] does have PAE after all.
>
> PAE is in every AMD/Intel chip manufactured post 1998. You'd have to be
> using a Pentium MMX, AMD K6-2, or older chip, to lack PAE support.
>
> The general rule here: if the chip clock is greater than 550 MHz it has
> PAE, PSE, PSE-36, or all three, and you're golden. Few people are using
> chips this old, thus this question actually should never pop up.
> Curious that it does, given you can find this information so easily with
> Google.
Google is Wikipedia, which is at best misleading if not wrong. And the
second hit is someone asking what processors don't support PAE and
quoting Wikipedia as saying Pentium M is amongst those that don't. (I
haven't linked to those sources in case in helps in some small way to
boost their search rankings.)
I did however not rely on these source anyway and looked at Intel's site
and found the spec for my CPU said it had 32-bit Physical Address
Extensions, which confused me initially because 32-bits didn't seem
'extended'. (I guess it's just that they haven't baked or wired up move
address lines.)
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Andrei POPESCU
Feb 27, 2013, 3:30:01 PM2/27/13
to
On Ma, 26 feb 13, 09:03:55, Tixy wrote:
>
> Unfortunately, the top hits for me when searching for "pentium m pae" in
> Google is Wikipedia, which is at best misleading if not wrong.
It's a wiki :p
>
> Unfortunately, the top hits for me when searching for "pentium m pae" in
> Google is Wikipedia, which is at best misleading if not wrong.
(SCNR)
Kind regards,
Andrei
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Rob McMurray
Mar 19, 2013, 4:00:02 PM3/19/13
to
Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
> On Ma, 26 feb 13, 09:03:55, Tixy wrote:
> >
> > Unfortunately, the top hits for me when searching for "pentium m pae" in
> > Google is Wikipedia, which is at best misleading if not wrong.
>
> It's a wiki :p
> (SCNR)
>
> Kind regards,
> Andrei
Hi,
>
> On Ma, 26 feb 13, 09:03:55, Tixy wrote:
> >
> > Unfortunately, the top hits for me when searching for "pentium m pae" in
> > Google is Wikipedia, which is at best misleading if not wrong.
>
> It's a wiki :p
> (SCNR)
>
> Kind regards,
> Andrei
I want to run ownCloud on a small server using a mini-itx motherboard.
Unfortunately the CPU, a 1GHz VIA C3 Eden Nehemiah, doesn't support pae
so I haven't yet found anything current that supports it. CentOS 5.9 works but
not the latest 6.x version and SolusOS non-pae doesn't load for some other
reason I have yet to work out. Xubuntu failed also. The error on these non-
working distros is typically 'you need to use a supported CPU' and lists the two
items not supported... pae and cx8.
Rob
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Bob Proulx
Mar 19, 2013, 5:50:02 PM3/19/13
to
Rob McMurray wrote:
> I want to run ownCloud on a small server using a mini-itx
> motherboard. Unfortunately the CPU, a 1GHz VIA C3 Eden Nehemiah,
> doesn't support pae so I haven't yet found anything current that
> supports it. CentOS 5.9 works but not the latest 6.x version and
> SolusOS non-pae doesn't load for some other reason I have yet to
> work out. Xubuntu failed also. The error on these non- working
> distros is typically 'you need to use a supported CPU' and lists the
> two items not supported... pae and cx8.
You probably need to run the 486 architecture. My Pentium machine has
> I want to run ownCloud on a small server using a mini-itx
> motherboard. Unfortunately the CPU, a 1GHz VIA C3 Eden Nehemiah,
> doesn't support pae so I haven't yet found anything current that
> supports it. CentOS 5.9 works but not the latest 6.x version and
> SolusOS non-pae doesn't load for some other reason I have yet to
> work out. Xubuntu failed also. The error on these non- working
> distros is typically 'you need to use a supported CPU' and lists the
> two items not supported... pae and cx8.
these installed:
linux-image-2.6.32-5-486
linux-image-2.6-486
linux-image-486
Bob
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