Message-ID: <42837C2E.9000506@nortel.com>
Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 09:54:22 -0600
From: Chris Friesen <cfriesen@nortel.com>
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To: linux-os@analogic.com
CC: "Tetsuji \"Maverick\" Rai" <tetsuji.rai@gmail.com>,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Need kernel patch to compile with Intel compiler
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Richard B. Johnson wrote:

> The kernel is designed to be compiled with the GNU 'C' compler
> supplied with every distribution. It uses a lot of __asm__()
> statements and other GNU-specific constructions.

Yep.  And Intel added a bunch of them to their compiler so that they 
could build a kernel with it.

> Why would you even attempt to convert the kernel sources to
> be compiled with some other tools?

The Intel compiler is quite good at optimizing for their processors (and 
ironically for AMD ones as well).  However, I think that a lot of the 
gains come from the vectorizer, which of course can't be used with 
kernel code.

Chris
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