[NTLUG:Discuss] advice and counsel on an smp kernel migration

[J. Reeves Hall]

Dale Massey wrote:

> David Camm wrote:
> >
> > i am going to be upgrading our production web server shortly, and my
> > hardware guru insists that i will get better performance and longer
> > useful life from a 2-cpu configuration. the system is running redhat 5.2
> >
> > never having done this before, i'm a bit concerned, so i have the
> > following questions....
> >
> > 1. any bad experience with SMP on the 2.0.36 kernel?
> >
> > 2. can i gen the kernel now on the uniprocessor system and then replace
> > the motherboard?
> >
> > 3. if the answer to 3 is yes, can i run the new kernel run on the
> > existing single cpu motherboard if i decide to dealy the hardware
> > upgrade?
> >

The 2.2 kernel series is much better as far as SMP goes. 2.0.36 is functional
but the performance lacks.
I completely agree that SMP machines are vastly superior; I am running a dual
PII 350, and I have no need to upgrade in the forseeable future.
The nice thing about SMP is that one process cannot completely load the
machine; it's much more responsive.
You can boot a single processor kernel on an SMP board; it just won't use the
second CPU.

-Reeves


--
J. Reeves Hall, Georgia Tech CS Major
Linux #5 SMP Mon Mar 20 21:56:31 EST 2000
3:07pm  up 1 day,  1:13,  8 users,  load average: 0.18, 0.05, 0.01