m.marien wrote:

> There is always a certain amount of overhead so the SETI processes will
>  never get 100% of all the processing power. But it looks like one SETI
>  process takes about 25% of the available processing power or 50% of
> one processor. So you need to run two processes per processor in order
> to maximize the processing power.
>
> I guess since the demise of DOS all o/s are multithreading. But it's
> still an interesting move on Intel's part, a processor built to take
> advantage of the software ??? It's usually the other way around.
>
Not multithreading, but multi-programming and in many cases,
multi-processing. My machine has more than one processor, so it does
symmetric multiprocessing. But running Linux (or any other UNIX type OS)
means it is multi=programming as well.

Multi-threading is something else; IMAO an inferior form of
multi-programming where the various programs in a thread are all the same
program, and all too often share memory whether they want to or not. Once
in a while this is a good idea (especially on operating systems where
process creation and destruction are expensive operations). Linux happens
to offer multithreading to those who want it.

--
.~.  Jean-David Beyer           Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\                             Registered Machine   241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey     http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 14:20:00 up 9 days, 1:24, 3 users, load average: 4.14, 4.22, 4.18

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