Gian Paolo Ghilardi's questions

I'm a bit confused about Intel vPro/AMT and processors/motherboards supporting these features.

If I install an Intel i3 processor - a CPU not vPro compatible - on a motherboard compatible with these technologies, the whole support will be fully and automatically disabled or I'll miss only the CPU-related diagnostics entries in AMT?

In other words, what sub-features of these technlogies I'll miss installing an i3 CPU instead of an i5/i7? All, some parts, ... ?

As vPro includes AMT, being not vPro compatible automatically means AMT will be disabled?

Thanks in advance.

PS: I'm asking this question here because vPro/AMT are primarily marketed for remote administration purposes and because a client (sysadmin) explicitly asked me about this "opportunity". If this question is OT, here are my apologies.

Recently, for an embedded project, I was asked to emulate on Linux the effects of the Enhanced Write Filter (EWF) of Windows XP Embedded.

In particular, I need a sort of EWF for:

1. avoiding to write too many times on disk (we use CFs);
2. protecting programs/config files after accidental reboots/failures/erroneous changes.

As far as I know, Linux has no feature similar EWF and it doesn't write as much as Windows on disk (see this answer), but my chief asked me to investigate something that can provide a solution for both the requirements.

At the moment I'm trying this simple strategy:

1. I've a little partition (mount point: /safe) with the data/directories I should protect (i.e. the whole /etc directory)
2. during system bootup I mount in RAM (tmpfs) all the directories that I must protect then I copy data from /safe into them.
3. if all goes right, I can unmount /safe. If needed, a little script allows me to mount /safe and "commit" changes to files, if needed.
4. I can force / read-only: all programs I need are in RAM and they're writing stuff in RAM.

Any idea/suggestion?

I'm using a stripped-down Debian Lenny with Ext2-formatted partitions on x86 architecture (BTW, any suggestions for a simple journaled/COW filesystem suitable for this task?).

Thanks.