PATCH: i386/x86_64 segment register access update

["H. J. Lu" <hjl at lucon dot org>]

The new i386/x86_64 assemblers no longer accept instructions for moving
between a segment register and a 32bit memory location, i.e.,

        movl (%eax),%ds
        movl %ds,(%eax)

To generate instructions for moving between a segment register and a
16bit memory location without the 16bit operand size prefix, 0x66,

        mov (%eax),%ds
        mov %ds,(%eax)

should be used. It will work with both new and old assemblers. The
assembler starting from 2.16.90.0.1 will also support

        movw (%eax),%ds
        movw %ds,(%eax)

without the 0x66 prefix. I am enclosing patches for 2.4 and 2.6 kernels
here. The resulting kernel binaries should be unchanged as before, with
old and new assemblers, if gcc never generates memory access for

               unsigned gsindex;
               asm volatile("movl %%gs,%0" : "=g" (gsindex));

If gcc does generate memory access for the code above, the upper bits
in gsindex are undefined and the new assembler doesn't allow it.


H.J.

Attachment: linux-2.4-seg-4.patch
Description: Text document

Attachment: linux-2.6-seg-5.patch
Description: Text document