Re: SMP=1 (was 2.1.103: Still "Ugh at c0111691")

Pierre Phaneuf (pphaneuf@sx.nec.com)
Mon, 25 May 1998 11:37:59 -0400


Mark Cooke wrote:

> > > Its quite embarassing to say that I've built SMP-kernels on my single
> > > processor system - I just didn't notice that SMP was enabled.
> <snip>
> > This should be changed so that SMP is not default anymore once
> > all the different source trees get synced again. (i.e., hopefully before
> > 2.2. :)
>
> Or that menuconfig/xconfig/config and modified to have a reasonably
> prominent display of the current setting of the SMP variable.

It shouldn't be embarassing or something. SMP kernels are *supposed* to
work on single processor systems. I think there's a APIC emulation layer
(whatever that is!) slowing things down when you use an SMP kernel on a
UP system, but it *should* work. I run SMP kernels on my UP system to
see if anything breaks because of this. I (think I) pay with lessened
performances, but the reward is I know I'm helping out with kernel
development (trying to break things)...

On the other hand, this is only the second Oops I had since starting up
with 2.1.x kernels (I started at 2.1.92), so maybe I'm not helping
much... ;-) (kudos to Linus and everyone!)

-- 
Pierre Phaneuf
Web: http://newsfeed.sx.nec.com/~ynecpip/
finger: ynecpip@newsfeed.sx.nec.com

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