# Version for Intel Processors Without PAE NX Bit



## bsd10 (Dec 16, 2010)

The OpenBSD site says that it is safer to install OpenBSD/i386 instead of OpenBSD/amd64 on Intel chips with AMD64 extensions that don't support the PAE NX bit. Does the same apply with FreeBSD/i386 and FreeBSD/amd64, or is it handled differently in FreeBSD? If it does apply, how can you find out if your chip supports the PAE NX bit? Is there a feature that will show for the cpu in dmesg?


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## SirDice (Dec 16, 2010)

PAE has nothing to do with the NX bit.


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## bsd10 (Dec 16, 2010)

The OpenBSD Site says this:



> Some Intel processors lack support for important PAE NX bit, which means those machines will run without any W^X support -- it is thus safer to run those machines in i386 mode



Is that wrong, or does it not apply to FreeBSD?


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## SirDice (Dec 16, 2010)

FreeBSD uses SSP not W^X.


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