Linux had to do the same thing with tyhe Cyrix chips.  

Just my $0.00 worth. 

On Fri, 15 Sep 2000, Jukka Marin wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 14, 2000 at 07:44:02PM -0700, Matthew Jacob wrote:
> > > >>  date: 2000/09/10 11:32:04;  author: pk;  state: Exp;  lines: +17 -2
> > > >>  Turn off page zeroing in the idle loop; an unidentified bug causes (very
> > > >>  sporadic) user process corruption.
> > > >
> > > >(actually applies to Microsparc 1 machines only).
> > > 
> > You most certainly should be doign page zeroing in the idle loop, too.
> > 
> > And I agree with you on this one. Has anyone picked up the Linux/PPC hack for
> > doing pagezero's bypassing the cache?
> 
> Hmm, what's the real problem here - why does the cache need to be disabled?
> You may know that in i386 port, there was a problem that Cyrix CPU's kept
> crashing with the idle pagezero code.  The problem is said to be fixed (I
> had to switch CPU's long before the fix).  Are these two problems (Cyrix
> and Microsparc 1) related?  (No, I haven't got a Microsparc, I'm just
> curious..)
> 
>   -jm
>