- cpuinfo falsification
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cpuinfo falsification is a lowest common denominator technique that can be used on GNU operating systems to provide backwards compatible behaviour of the compiler and software tools. This technique is typically used on IBM compatible computers using 80x86 series processors, but can be used on other architectures, where applicable.
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Background
On GNU based operating systems, some software tools, such as the compiler and package building tools, detect CPU specific extensions that are incompatible with existing machines. This may cause incompatibility issues during compilation or operation of software on computers being utilized as backward compatible replacements.
The cpuinfo falsification project
The cpuinfo falsification project provides an assortment of patches to the GNU operating system to provide i386 compatible behaviour of the compiler and software tools without the need for explicit cross compilation.
setarch
The Unix setarch command provides the facility to generate falsified generic architecture information for system building. However, this does not currently work on GNU based operating systems:
# The setarch utility does not work at this time setarch i386 uname -m i686 <--- It's not working.
uname_hack
The uname_hack kernel module causes generic architecture information to be provided by the kernel.
uname
The uname utility is fixed by loading the uname hack module. This provides falsified processor information for "lowest common denominator" compatibility.
uname -m i686 <--- This is no good insmod uname_hack.ko uname -m i386 <--- This will work just fine on a Pentium
/proc/cpuinfo
The /proc/cpuinfo file is patched by using a bindmount to overlay a file containing falsified CPU related information:
if [ -e /etc/cpuinfo] ; then mount—bind /etc/cpuinfo /proc/cpuinfo fi
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