Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2886 mails)

[Tim Prince <tprince@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Saturday 09 February 2002 16:14, Karol Pietrzak wrote:
> On 9 Feb 2002, Rick Francis wrote:
> > will suse professional v7.3 take advantage of multiple cpu's?
>
> Since all Linux distributions use the Linux kernel, the question
> is a general one and not a SuSE-specific.  For Linux 2.4, two-
> way SMP is excellent, and four-way is supposedly the "sweet
> spot".  I believe (don't quote this) Linux 2.4 scales up to 64
> procs, but the performance is abysmal.
>
> So, to answer your question, YES!
 
What's that about a sweet spot?  I have a 4-way P-III running linux at the 
office, but it's no barn burner.  Nor does Hyper-Threading  take the place of 
real additional CPU's.  Linux begins to look like a better deal, if Bill 
Gates says you must buy XP Server for such a box.  Maybe MS have convinced 
themselves linux has no chance against a $900+ OS which has yet to appear in 
our lab?  kernel 2.4.17 runs OK on dual Hyper-Threading CPU's (4 "logical" 
processors).  make -j 4 does run faster H-T enabled, though nothing like 3 
CPU's.