mycroft@gnu.ai.mit.edu writes:
> 
> 
>    The kernel increased in size by about 50KB, [...]
> 
> Sounds like you weren't using `-m486' for the kernel before.  


Ahh, you're correct.


> It forces
> alignment to 16-byte (`paragraph' in Intel parlance) boundaries rather
> than 4-byte.  In practice, this only really tends to make the code much
> larger; the performance benefit is negligible if any.
> 


Hmm, I wonder if it has to do with the line size of the internal cache on
the i486; if the cache uses a 4-word line size, this alignment might assist
the instruction fetch unit so that jumps/branches are cache line-aligned.
However, I'm not sure what the line size is, so this is just speculation.


-dwh-
dhess@cs.stanford.edu


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