[KLUG Members] SMP kernel for a single Xeon Processsor?

[Bob Kanaley]

Greeting all,

Recently, I installed RH9 on a single Xeon processor HP DL140 1U server. I
ended up with an SMP kernel. I know the multi-threading capabilities of the
Xeon make the installer think I have multiple CPU's. But with only a single
physical CPU, I don't know if having a SMP kernel is a good thing to help
the CPU make use of threading or if it is just a bogus waste of IO-APIC
IRQ's.

I read that it really doesn’t hurt a single CPU box to run a SMP kernel, but
there is some additional overhead when you do this.

Since I don't have a clue how to run all those fancy benchmarking tests
people like Adam run, I really don’t know if I should be running the SMP
kernel on this box.

Anyone have experience with this?

Bob

Robert V. Kanaley
Manager Information Systems
Agdia, Inc.
rvk@agdia.com
http://www.agdia.com