At 10:17 PM 04/18/2001, Rik van Riel wrote:
>On Wed, 18 Apr 2001, Dennis wrote:
>
> > >You think Intel isn't going to market dual/quad ia64 machines?
> >
> > Yes, but who'll need them?
>
>If nobody needed them, what would be the point in SELLING
>them ?
>
>I know you don't trust our technical instinct, but you might
>at least consider the business instinct of companies like
>Intel, IBM or Unisys (who all sell big SMP systems).
I didnt say they shouldnt support SMP, only that complicating the OS with
highly SMP-specific code to make it slightly more efficient when 99% of
users dont need it is a questionable endeavor.
>And as for the "but you can wait 2 years until UP is faster than
>today's SMP" doesn't quite work for eg. investment banking and
>stock funds. More computing power means better calculations, which
>means more money. And for folks like them, computing power is not
>measured in FLOPS, but in ACRES. And when you're talking 3 acres
>of computing power, you'd better have some decend density (ie. SMP
>in 2U rackmounted boxes, or something similarly suitable).
Your point is moot, as you already have SMP support. The question is
whether squeezing a few extra cycles out (SMPng) is worth making the OS
significantly more complex, particularly when more computing power is
always on the way.
I understand there is a language thing, but I went out of my way to say
that i wasnt saying that SMP shouldnt be supported. It already is, and its
been done very cleanly in a way that doesnt compromise the integrity of the
OS internals.
DB
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