Re: How to detect math coprocessor?

From: John-Paul Stewart (jpstewart_at_binaryfoundry.ca)
Date: 11/26/05 

Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2005 14:07:25 -0500

General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 15:41:21 +0000, bill wrote:
>
>
>>
>>
>>How can I determine if a machine has a math coprocessor? I've run
>>dmesg and lspci, but I don't know what to look for in the output
>>to settle the matter.
>
> Unless you are running a 386 or older you have an FPU built into the
> processor.
>
> If you are running an antique then try,
>
> cat /proc/cpuinfo

You're overlooking non-x86 processors. Linux runs on a lot of
architectures, and many of those which are used in embedded systems
won't have a math co-processor. Checking /proc/cpuinfo is probably the
best bet on those machines. (I don't have such a machine handy to know
for sure what /proc/cpuinfo might say about an embedded CPU that lacks a
co-processor.)