On Mon, 2007-01-22 at 09:46 +0200, Ramagudi Naziir w > Another question is why SYSENTER directives are not embedded directly > in the code ? why do they have to use that linux-gate ? because of 2 reasons 1) not all cpus support sysenter, or sysenter might not be the fastest way. With the VDSO page, the kernel provides you with the fastest way for your system without the application needing to know the details (and getting them wrong) 2) sysenter can only return to a fixed location, not to some arbitrary location. This works well in the VDSO case, no problem. But it breaks entirely for "random" sysenter calls throughout code. -- if you want to mail me at work (you don't), use arjan (at) linux.intel.com Test the interaction between Linux and your BIOS via http://www.linuxfirmwarekit.org -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
