[6548] in RedHat Linux List
Re: SMP systems, XING streaming video
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Geoffrey D. Bennett)
Thu Nov 28 00:59:49 1996
From: "Geoffrey D. Bennett" <g@netcraft.com.au>
To: redhat-list@redhat.com
Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 16:28:05 +1030 (CST)
Cc: tintype@zedalis.com
In-Reply-To: <19961126202226.3266.qmail@brouhaha.com> from "Eric Smith" at Nov 26, 96 08:22:26 pm
Resent-From: redhat-list@redhat.com
Reply-To: redhat-list@redhat.com
Eric wrote:
> Stephen Zedalis <tintype@zedalis.com> wrote:
> > First, even though it has been included in the stable kernels, SMP support
> > is still in an alpha experimental stage. In fact, it definitely does not
> > do well in some environments. In its current implementation, only one
> > CPU (cpu 0) handles all kernel code and all hardware interrupts.
>
> Is that really true? If so, it's not SMP at all. SMP stands for
> *Symmetric* multiprocessing, which means each CPU can execute any process,
> even in kernel mode.
No, I don't think it's true. Only one CPU at a time (any one) can be
in kernel mode; this is due to the coarse-grained locking currently in
use and making this finer-grained is one of the current SMP projects
as far as I understand. I can't remember what the situation is with
interrupts, but the kernel _is_ SMP.
Regards,
--
Geoffrey D. Bennett (geoffrey@netcraft.com.au)
Computer Systems Manager, NetCraft Australia
http://www.netcraft.com.au/geoffrey/
Red Hat Linux Resellers: http://www.netcraft.com.au/redhat/
--
PLEASE read the Red Hat FAQ, Tips, Errata and the MAILING LIST ARCHIVES!
________________________________________________________________________
http://www.redhat.com/RedHat-FAQ http://www.redhat.com/RedHat-Errata
http://www.redhat.com/RedHat-Tips http://www.redhat.com/mailing-lists
------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe: mail -s unsubscribe redhat-list-request@redhat.com < /dev/null
