On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 18:26:44 +1100, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:

> Iceman wrote: 
>
> Symmetric Multi Processing yes, SMT  no. Enlighten me.
>

http://www.lienhart.de/Publications/MSE2002.pdf

Here is one of many papers on the subject. You might want to do a google
search on SMT+Linux. It is currently possible in limited from with the new
kernels. It is currently available in various Intel CPU's, least expensive
of which is the even numbered P4 CPU's.
 
>
> If the above is about SMP, then its wrong. SMP was in the
> kernel long before RH shipped it because it was in a
> development kernel and RH doesn't ship development kernels.
>

No, it isn't SMP and if you were to read some of the papers on Intel's site
you will see what I was writing about. SMP and SMT are related in a way,
but they are not the same.

Look how many years it took for SATA to be enabled, it was much simpler to
implement, yet.....
 
>
> People have been saying "the sky is falling" for a long time
> too.
>

True, but the OP was still correct. They are already behind the eight ball
on this. Software programmers need to be aware of it in order to make use
of it in the Linux community. It is already being used in the Win
community. May be in the linux community, I'm just not aware of it.

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