Fwd: Is the Via C5J Esther not capable of NPTL in FC3 test 1

[Russell Coker]

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: FW: Is the Via C5J Esther not capable of NPTL in FC3 test 1
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 23:20
From: "Richard Brown" <richardbrown at viaarena.com>
To: <russell at coker.com.au>, <yusufg at outblaze.com>

Yusuf & Russell:

I have checked this issue with our CPU team; they say that this issue only
occurs in early generation versions of the VIA C3 codenamed Samuel 1 and
Samuel 2, which were available at speeds of up to 800MHz.

All subsequent versions of the processor, including the latest Nehemiah
core, do not have any problems. The forthcoming Esther part will also run
the application.

Hope this clarifies the situation.

Best regards

Richard

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Russell Coker [mailto:russell at coker.com.au]
>Sent: Wednesday, July 14, 2004 5:09 PM
>To: Yusuf Goolamabbas; Richard_Brown at via.com.tw
>Subject: Re: Is the Via C5J Esther not capable of NPTL in FC3 test 1
>
>Richard, could you please get someone to answer Yusuf's question on whether
>the VIA CPU works with full functionality on Fedora Core 3 test 1?  The URL
>below can be used to download Fedora Core 3 test 1.  I think than an
>official
>response from VIA concerning this matter would be best for everyone.
>
>http://www.fedora.redhat.com/download/test.html
>
>On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 13:27, Yusuf Goolamabbas <yusufg at outblaze.com> wrote:
> > Hi, According to the VIA press release, their upcoming processor
> > the VIA C5J Esther has support for NX protection, hardware instructions
> > for RSA encryption/SHA, SSE2/SSE3 so it seems to be a pretty modern
> > processor.
> >
> > http://www.via.com.tw/en/Digital%20Library/PR040518EPF.jsp
> >
> > However, according to the FC3test1 release page
> >
> > --
> >  Native POSIX Thread Library (NPTL) support is unavailable in
> >  architectures below i686. This includes VIA, AMD K6, and i586 Pentium
> >  processors. This is known to be problematic for certain applications
> >  that rely on NPTL db4, such as subversion.
> > --
> >
> > I am not sure if the VIA C5J Esther is included in the above
> > architectures. It would be nice if OpenSSL could be enhanced to support
> > the hw montgomery multiplication instruction. The C5J Esther seems like
> > an impressive CPU to run https servers if the SSL handshake/bulk
> > encryption can be done with little CPU load
> >
> > Regards, Yusuf
> > --
> > Yusuf Goolamabbas
> > yusufg at outblaze.com
>
>--
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---------------------
Jesse Ahrens
Systems Engineer
Centaur Technology
(512) 418-5794

-------------------------------------------------------

-- 
http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/   My NSA Security Enhanced Linux packages
http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++/  Bonnie++ hard drive benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/postal/    Postal SMTP/POP benchmark
http://www.coker.com.au/~russell/  My home page