This is the processor type of your CPU. This information is used for optimizing purposes. In order to compile a kernel that can run on all supported x86 CPU types (albeit not optimally fast), you can specify "486" here. Note that the 386 is no longer supported, this includes AMD/Cyrix/Intel 386DX/DXL/SL/SLC/SX, Cyrix/TI 486DLC/DLC2, UMC 486SX-S and the NexGen Nx586. The kernel will not necessarily run on earlier architectures than the one you have chosen, e.g. a Pentium optimized kernel will run on a PPro, but not necessarily on a i486. Here are the settings recommended for greatest speed: - "486" for the AMD/Cyrix/IBM/Intel 486DX/DX2/DX4 or SL/SLC/SLC2/SLC3/SX/SX2 and UMC U5D or U5S. - "586" for generic Pentium CPUs lacking the TSC (time stamp counter) register. - "Pentium-Classic" for the Intel Pentium. - "Pentium-MMX" for the Intel Pentium MMX. - "Pentium-Pro" for the Intel Pentium Pro. - "Pentium-II" for the Intel Pentium II or pre-Coppermine Celeron. - "Pentium-III" for the Intel Pentium III or Coppermine Celeron. - "Pentium-4" for the Intel Pentium 4 or P4-based Celeron. - "K6" for the AMD K6, K6-II and K6-III (aka K6-3D). - "Athlon" for the AMD K7 family (Athlon/Duron/Thunderbird). - "Opteron/Athlon64/Hammer/K8" for all K8 and newer AMD CPUs. - "Crusoe" for the Transmeta Crusoe series. - "Efficeon" for the Transmeta Efficeon series. - "Winchip-C6" for original IDT Winchip. - "Winchip-2" for IDT Winchips with 3dNow! capabilities. - "AMD Elan" for the 32-bit AMD Elan embedded CPU. - "GeodeGX1" for Geode GX1 (Cyrix MediaGX). - "Geode GX/LX" For AMD Geode GX and LX processors. - "CyrixIII/VIA C3" for VIA Cyrix III or VIA C3. - "VIA C3-2" for VIA C3-2 "Nehemiah" (model 9 and above). - "VIA C7" for VIA C7. - "Intel P4" for the Pentium 4/Netburst microarchitecture. - "Core 2/newer Xeon" for all core2 and newer Intel CPUs. - "Intel Atom" for the Atom-microarchitecture CPUs. - "Generic-x86-64" for a kernel which runs on any x86-64 CPU. See each option's help text for additional details. If you don't know what to do, choose "486".
Select this for an 486-class CPU without an FPU such as AMD/Cyrix/IBM/Intel SL/SLC/SLC2/SLC3/SX/SX2 and UMC U5S.
Select this for an 486-class CPU such as AMD/Cyrix/IBM/Intel 486DX/DX2/DX4 and UMC U5D.
Select this for an 586 or 686 series processor such as the AMD K5, the Cyrix 5x86, 6x86 and 6x86MX. This choice does not assume the RDTSC (Read Time Stamp Counter) instruction.
Select this for a Pentium Classic processor with the RDTSC (Read Time Stamp Counter) instruction for benchmarking.
Select this for a Pentium with the MMX graphics/multimedia extended instructions.
Select this for Intel Pentium Pro chips. This enables the use of Pentium Pro extended instructions, and disables the init-time guard against the f00f bug found in earlier Pentiums.
Select this for Intel chips based on the Pentium-II and pre-Coppermine Celeron core. This option enables an unaligned copy optimization, compiles the kernel with optimization flags tailored for the chip, and applies any applicable Pentium Pro optimizations.
Select this for Intel chips based on the Pentium-III and Celeron-Coppermine core. This option enables use of some extended prefetch instructions in addition to the Pentium II extensions.
Select this for Intel Pentium M (not Pentium-4 M) notebook chips.
Select this for Intel Pentium 4 chips. This includes the Pentium 4, Pentium D, P4-based Celeron and Xeon, and Pentium-4 M (not Pentium M) chips. This option enables compile flags optimized for the chip, uses the correct cache line size, and applies any applicable optimizations. CPUIDs: F[0-6][1-A] (in /proc/cpuinfo show = cpu family : 15 ) Select this for: Pentiums (Pentium 4, Pentium D, Celeron, Celeron D) corename: -Willamette -Northwood -Mobile Pentium 4 -Mobile Pentium 4 M -Extreme Edition (Gallatin) -Prescott -Prescott 2M -Cedar Mill -Presler -Smithfiled Xeons (Intel Xeon, Xeon MP, Xeon LV, Xeon MV) corename: -Foster -Prestonia -Gallatin -Nocona -Irwindale -Cranford -Potomac -Paxville -Dempsey
Select this for an AMD K6-family processor. Enables use of some extended instructions, and passes appropriate optimization flags to GCC.
Select this for an AMD Athlon K7-family processor. Enables use of some extended instructions, and passes appropriate optimization flags to GCC.
Select this for an AMD Opteron or Athlon64 Hammer-family processor. Enables use of some extended instructions, and passes appropriate optimization flags to GCC.
Select this for a Transmeta Crusoe processor. Treats the processor like a 586 with TSC, and sets some GCC optimization flags (like a Pentium Pro with no alignment requirements).
Select this for a Transmeta Efficeon processor.
Select this for an IDT Winchip C6 chip. Linux and GCC treat this chip as a 586TSC with some extended instructions and alignment requirements.
Select this for an IDT Winchip-2, 2A or 3. Linux and GCC treat this chip as a 586TSC with some extended instructions and alignment requirements. Also enable out of order memory stores for this CPU, which can increase performance of some operations.
Select this for an AMD Elan processor. Do not use this option for K6/Athlon/Opteron processors!
Select this for a Geode GX1 (Cyrix MediaGX) chip.
Select this for AMD Geode GX and LX processors.
Select this for a Cyrix III or C3 chip. Presently Linux and GCC treat this chip as a generic 586. Whilst the CPU is 686 class, it lacks the cmov extension which gcc assumes is present when generating 686 code. Note that Nehemiah (Model 9) and above will not boot with this kernel due to them lacking the 3DNow! instructions used in earlier incarnations of the CPU.
Select this for a VIA C3 "Nehemiah". Selecting this enables usage of SSE and tells gcc to treat the CPU as a 686. Note, this kernel will not boot on older (pre model 9) C3s.
Select this for a VIA C7. Selecting this uses the correct cache shift and tells gcc to treat the CPU as a 686.
Optimize for Intel Pentium 4, Pentium D and older Nocona/Dempsey Xeon CPUs with Intel 64bit which is compatible with x86-64. Note that the latest Xeons (Xeon 51xx and 53xx) are not based on the Netburst core and shouldn't use this option. You can distinguish them using the cpu family field in /proc/cpuinfo. Family 15 is an older Xeon, Family 6 a newer one.
Select this for Intel Core 2 and newer Core 2 Xeons (Xeon 51xx and 53xx) CPUs. You can distinguish newer from older Xeons by the CPU family in /proc/cpuinfo. Newer ones have 6 and older ones 15 (not a typo)
Select this for the Intel Atom platform. Intel Atom CPUs have an in-order pipelining architecture and thus can benefit from accordingly optimized code. Use a recent GCC with specific Atom support in order to fully benefit from selecting this option.
Generic x86-64 CPU. Run equally well on all x86-64 CPUs.
Instead of just including optimizations for the selected x86 variant (e.g. PII, Crusoe or Athlon), include some more generic optimizations as well. This will make the kernel perform better on x86 CPUs other than that selected. This is really intended for distributors who need more generic optimizations.
This lets you choose what x86 vendor support code your kernel will include.
This enables detection, tunings and quirks for Intel processors You need this enabled if you want your kernel to run on an Intel CPU. Disabling this option on other types of CPUs makes the kernel a tiny bit smaller. Disabling it on an Intel CPU might render the kernel unbootable. If unsure, say N.
This enables detection, tunings and quirks for Cyrix processors You need this enabled if you want your kernel to run on a Cyrix CPU. Disabling this option on other types of CPUs makes the kernel a tiny bit smaller. Disabling it on a Cyrix CPU might render the kernel unbootable. If unsure, say N.
This enables detection, tunings and quirks for AMD processors You need this enabled if you want your kernel to run on an AMD CPU. Disabling this option on other types of CPUs makes the kernel a tiny bit smaller. Disabling it on an AMD CPU might render the kernel unbootable. If unsure, say N.
This enables detection, tunings and quirks for Hygon processors You need this enabled if you want your kernel to run on an Hygon CPU. Disabling this option on other types of CPUs makes the kernel a tiny bit smaller. Disabling it on an Hygon CPU might render the kernel unbootable. If unsure, say N.
This enables detection, tunings and quirks for Centaur processors You need this enabled if you want your kernel to run on a Centaur CPU. Disabling this option on other types of CPUs makes the kernel a tiny bit smaller. Disabling it on a Centaur CPU might render the kernel unbootable. If unsure, say N.
This enables detection, tunings and quirks for Transmeta processors You need this enabled if you want your kernel to run on a Transmeta CPU. Disabling this option on other types of CPUs makes the kernel a tiny bit smaller. Disabling it on a Transmeta CPU might render the kernel unbootable. If unsure, say N.
This enables detection, tunings and quirks for UMC processors You need this enabled if you want your kernel to run on a UMC CPU. Disabling this option on other types of CPUs makes the kernel a tiny bit smaller. Disabling it on a UMC CPU might render the kernel unbootable. If unsure, say N.
This enables detection, tunings and quirks for Zhaoxin processors You need this enabled if you want your kernel to run on a Zhaoxin CPU. Disabling this option on other types of CPUs makes the kernel a tiny bit smaller. Disabling it on a Zhaoxin CPU might render the kernel unbootable. If unsure, say N.