Alan Cox wrote:
>
> > This machines performs fairly well, despite having only 2 PII350's. Here is
> > the problem: Only one processor is enabled. I've called Dell, and they say no
> > support, and to call RH. Called them, no support either. So, I'm turning to
> > alternative resources: Anyone have any suggestions for where to find
> > documentation pertaining to compiling a Kernel, and/or, compiling a kernel
> > w/SMP support? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> If you paid Dell to install Linux properly on a box and they missed little
> details like SMP support on a multiprocessor machine you should return it as
> faulty. Go to one of the Linux hardware vendors and ask them to do the job
> properly for you.
To be fair to Dell, they sell Red Hat Linux 5.2 pre-installed on these
systems. If Red Hat Linux 5.2 doesn't support SMP, then neither do
they. Expecting something different from Dell is no different than
expecting Dell to ship an SMP version of Win98. To that extent, Dell
not shipping an SMP capable kernel is because we haven't released one
for Red Hat Linux 5.2 and is our failing. The fact that they will still
sell you multiple CPUs is in anticipation of being able to use the extra
CPUs if you want to do a manual kernel compile or the day that we
release an SMP kernel RPM that can be applied to the machine.
We decided not to ship an SMP kernel with Red Hat Linux 5.2 because we
knew that there were some problems with 2.0.36 SMP. There were lots of
people that could do OK with it, but then there were other systems that
simply wouldn't work at all. Then there were the occasional lock up
problems. Then there was the occasional SCSI sub-system goes belly up
problem with my driver that's in the stock 2.0.36 (which I fixed in the
5.1.12 driver version just recently).
Originally, if we released a 2.0.36 SMP kernel RPM, people would be mad
that we shipped something that wasn't 100% "up to snuff" so to speak. I
would also feel like we fell down if we did that. People rely on us to
not only package things up, but to try and reasonably make sure those
packages work. Shipping a known busted package would violate that
expectation. At this point in time, with all of the patches there are
for 2.0.36 it *might* be possible to do an SMP kernel and finally feel
good about it.
--
Doug Ledford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Opinions expressed are my own, but
they should be everybody's.
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