[SGVLUG] Linux Sonoma (Centrino) Support

[Dustin]

On Mon, 19 Sep 2005, Michael Proctor-Smith wrote:

> On 9/19/05, Dustin <laurence at alice.caltech.edu> wrote:
> > Worse, that means the Turion chipsets are very new, and since it's a more
> > open architecture it doesn't have to come with a single chipset as the
> > Pentium-M generally does (centrino).  I assume that would make it harder
> > to determine support.
> 
> Remember that Centrino(R) is a platform not a chipset it is actually
> the Pentium-M/chipset/wifi  chipset combination.

I did say generally--but anyway it seems that Linux support for one
Centrino machine is about the same as the other, at least AFAIK.

> other manufactures that work with the Pentium-M. Remember that Intel
> has given up on the P4("net burst" architechure), and that every one
> but Intel was right that making a less clock efficient cpu core that
> "will scale better", does not work. The next Gen desktop/server cpu
> will be based on the Pentium-M which in turn is our old friend
> P3/P2/Ppro(with lots of improvements).

Yeah, that's as I understand it--sanity only reigned after AMD basically
knocked them on the head.  AFAICT the Pentium-M is close to a PIII with a
lot of low-power reworking (frequency scaling, L2 cache that can be shut
off in banks) plus an improved version of the P4 branch predictor.

Apparently some people have gotten a Pentium-M to overclock to the point
where it's faster than a P4 EE, which is amazing.  I always *hated* Intel
chips, but I admit the PPro design really seems to have legs.  I guess
just because the ISA sucks doesn't mean it wasn't executed well in
silicon.

> Just to let you know the Turion is a athlon 64 (using low power
> transistors) without on-die memory controller and in a socket 754
> package. In other words most chipsets that support single
> hypertransport cpus with support Turion.

I didn't realize that.  I thought that was something else (like a "mobile
Athlon 64" or something) and the Turion was a more extensive re-working.

> ...Remember Athlon 64 were much
> lower powered to begin with and AMD did not have to work as hard to
> make them into a mobile processor.

The few bits of performance information I've found suggest that the Turion 
performance was good, though not clearly better than the Pentium-M, but it 
used more power.  Intel worked pretty hard on Pentium-M power consumption, 
my guess is that AMD hasn't done as much.  They may have started closer, 
but I suspect they still aren't as efficient.

> ...The funny thing is that the resent
> Athlon(non-64) processors that supported hypertransport where also
> crippled(64bit functality disabled) athlon 64s.

That would be which, the last couple Athlon XP's they're still making (or 
were very recently) or the Semprons?  I seem to recall something like that 
about the Semprons, but I didn't think it was true of the XPs.

> > It's a shame--I would prefer to buy AMD, but unlike the case with
> > operating systems I am not dogmatic enough to accept too much in the way
> > of a compromise.
> 
> I agree, whole heartily.

Besides the fact that being in a snit about "the worst ISA ever" doesn't 
mean much, I decided a long time ago that it was better to break one 
monopoly at a time.

Dustin