x86-64

[Joseph Fenton]

> Has anyone evaluated running FreeBSD with Intel's
> x86-64 extensions (which appear to be a copy of AMD's?)

It's much too soon for that. Just a few days ago at the
IDF, Intel pointed at a box and claimed it had an x86-64
compatible chip in it. Noone was allowed to check it and
nothing was demonstrated on it. Intel says it will be
months before chips are available. Don't look for anyone
other than major Intel distributors like Dell to even
have prototype chips until summer.

I have downloaded Intels manuals on the chip and it
is identical to AMD64 with the addition of the Prescott
New Instructions (mostly SSE3). There should be no reason
why ia-32e (what Intel calls it) cannot run FreeBSD.
Microsoft claims XP 64-bit Edition works on it. They
probably ran it on the box that Intel had at IDF.

Oh, there was ONE difference between AMD64 and ia-32e:
the No Execute bit in AMD64 is not in ia-32e (yet). So
if FreeBSD is using this bit, it will be ineffective on
ia-32e based systems... unless Intel adds it between
now and when the chip is actually available.